Septennium |Poem

Septennium

Seven years

long enough to carve into memory,

long enough to leave scars.

Long enough to lose myself in you.

I thought I knew you.

I made your favourites mine,

held them like relics,

savoured them like prayers,

as if knowing the taste of your world would make me part of it.

But you never reached back.

Every question met only distance,

only silence.

Every attempt to know you

was brushed aside,

as if my wanting was a wound,

as if my love was too heavy to hold.

I could tell you how you liked your coffee.

I could list the songs you once played on repeat.

I could trace the outline of who you were

but none of it matters now.

Because you never asked.

You never learned the sound of my laughter,

the way my voice cracks when I’m nervous,

the way I take my tea

or how I like my toast.

You never studied me the way I studied you.

You never cared to know the things that made me feel like home.

I knew you.

I knew YOU.

And now I don’t.

Maybe I never did.

But I wanted to.

god, I wanted to.

I would have spent forever learning you,

if only you had let me.

and you.

you never knew me at all.

Seven years

not a lifetime,

but long enough to be wasted.

Long enough to mourn a stranger.

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