Even after all this time,
even after all those tears,
even after all the lies,
even after all the fears -
there it is: that which has always
been there for me to return to...
even after all the moments of heartbreak,
even after all the love that has been wasted,
even after all the lying faces,
even after all the secrets -
there they are: they who
know who and what they are,
no matter what facades
they currently choose to use...
even after all my heart has been through,
even after all the avenues of thought
my mind has gone down,
even after all the answers that I found
about what made others who they were -
there, more and more than ever before,
I see people who I used to know
showing me that I was once so
foolish to give them the gift of my trust,
and even though to them the past
is the past
I still have the same means to
access the memories of long ago
and remember what was said,
when, why, and with whom...
even after we all walk away
from something, someone, somewhere,
we always leave something behind,
we always leave an impression,
we always leave a shadow,
we always leave clues that can be used
to retrace our steps -
even those we thought had long since been erased;
we always return to what we knew,
we always return to who we knew,
we always return to where we knew -
however, when we ultimately do,
we always have an opportunity
to choose,
even if it is only retrospectively,
whether we would make the same
decisions again, and though
there is no definitive way to know
what would have happened
if different choices had been made,
it is still fascinating to wonder
how life would have panned out
if we had found something
we were looking for
when we were originally looking for it,
and we were able to say outloud:
"There it is" -
because one thing can always
make all the difference.