Did you take a good look at her before you left her?
If you didn’t, you should have.
Because eyes like hers will change as people like you will come and go.
The clouds of doubt in her eyes will rain tears
and leave her cheeks a colder place to kiss the next time.
Her hair now erupts into curls a little more sadly
now that your fingers run through them, no more.
Her color is blue, that of numbness and dissociation.
That of forgetfulness and despair.
That’s the only color you left her with. Blue.
Did you touch her intently before you left her?
If you didn’t, you should have.
Because a body like hers will take the beating of time.
When you run into her thirty-eight years later, she’ll be sixty.
The skin around her lips will no longer be taut and welcoming.
She’ll have wrinkles beside her eyes and scar tissue inside them.
Her skin will hang lose, as if it has given up, just like her.
Her body will no longer be the wonderland.
It’ll be an abandoned city after a long war.
That’s how you left her feeling. Like a war zone.
Did you seek forgiveness before you left her?
If you didn’t, you should have.
Because you don’t break something she called her heart
And walk away without an apology good enough.
Wait. What’s which apology has ever been good enough?
You can’t unscatter people. They’re just gone.
Just like you.
That’s the only gift you left her with. Your absence.
Did you take time out to cry for her before you left her?
If you didn’t, you should have.
For all the conversations she wanted to have and you didn’t.
For the things she felt deeply and you did too.
For all the things that got lost between silence and sleepless nights.
You should have wept, for the damnation of incomplete love.
That’s the only constant you left her with. Incompleteness.
Did you say a goodbye before you left her?
If you didn’t, you should have.
Because dreams that die young haunt the worst.
She feels like a book you started reading
And never finished. You just left her on the bed, open.
Near the window, from where storms and rains
Came in and tattered her pages
and yet, no storm could close her.
That’s how you left her. Without a closure.
The Broken Clock 