By Echolocation
Date: 5 October 2000

Tempus Medicit

In January it will be eight years.
Eight years since it all fell apart for the final time
Eight years since you held me, touched me, loved me
Eight years since I've heard your voice

Eight long years that seem so short
Eight short years that seem so long

I remember as if it were yesterday
The look in your eyes when we first met
But I can't remember the last time you said "I love you"
I wish could - wish I'd known it was going to be the last time
I would have written it down, marked it on my calendar with little hearts
Or teardrops

I remember as if it were yesterday
How much we laughed, how much good there was between us -
So much confidence that we could do anything because no matter what it was always us
But I can't remember the last time you held me, let me lean my head against your chest 
Just for the pleasure of hearing your heartbeat
I would have held you tighter if I'd known

Eight years of telling myself I've moved on
That I'm not one of the walking wounded
Only to be betrayed by a small thing -
A song, a smell, a half-heard voice,
A mannerism that's so you that it catches at my heart -
And suddenly I feel the hurt, the bewilderment, all over again 
Like a lost child surrounded by strangers

And then I want so badly to hate you
Because if I could make myself hate you 
Then maybe the smell of New Orleans in the spring 
Or the sight of a young couple with a new baby 
Wouldn't make me cry
Maybe I could convince myself 
That I'm not a defective who's forgotten how to love 
and how to trust
But most of all
Because maybe then
I wouldn't miss you any more