Reverse
The regret sunk in late.
When the crowd dispersed — when you were no longer within sight, your eyes flashed in my mind — and I wished I had looked at you longer, for the last time. I regretted looking the other way all the time. It cannot be done again. We don’t have a reverse button for all the things we wished we should’ve done before it was too late. If it did exist, I would’ve firmly looked at you, even at the expense of my vulnerability. I would not mind you seeing through my facade, of how I would break, and fall, and crawl to you all over again, because it would be the last time anyway.
I didn’t know the true weight of never seeing you again in actuality until it finally happened. I thought I would be happier by then, because that would mean ceasing to exist from your realm, and you from mine. A peace for my unsettled mind and my throbbing heart. However, when I was hit by our definite finale, the heaviest realization came pulling me down instead. There won’t be any next time anymore.
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There’s no more possibility of talking it out, of mending the misunderstanding, of revealing the hidden wound, of lingering in each other’s lives. In short, there’s no more room to cling onto hope.
And it became heavier when we did converse to each other before the unspoken goodbye. The laughter was still there. And so was the warmth when your presence was too close to me. Having your face up-close provoked the urge to keep looking at you, to let my eyes wander back to you whenever and wherever.
But I didn’t give in — because I wanted to love myself more than I wanted you.
Even when you were just next to me, when I had all the chances to treat you like I did before, I pretended I could not recall any of it, like I didn’t have the permission to. I knew I did, I just didn’t want to take it. For the sake of choosing me. I probably did the right thing, but it was not without the heaviest of heart. All I wanted was to look at you longer, anyway — to have engraved your face, all bright and smiling, to sign our complete end.
Now, I must live forth with that kind of truth I cannot bury.
