Regret

Three years
have come and gone
since I moved
3000 miles
to a place
I'd never been,
never seen,
never knew how to find
on a map
until I had to.

I've settled in now,
rooted down
in a space of my own.
You'd be proud
if those slate blue eyes
could still see me.

I've come back
a couple of times
only to run away again.
Nothing is the same,
maybe it never will be.

Maybe it never was
what I thought it was
in the first place.

I want it back -
the life we had before.
I want to change it all,
be different, do more
because then maybe
I'd still have you
to get advice from,
come home to,
share stories with
instead of the granite
and flower pots
that sit in honor of you.

I'd tell you my secrets
and listen when you spoke
instead of always thinking
I know what you're gonna say
next. I'd live in the moment
and let you live there too
instead of always waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

I never used to regret,
I thought it was useless -
we can't change the past,
only learn from it.
But now I feel it -
the anguish and pain
of "should have", "could have",
"would have" and "if only".

Now I know
how it feels
to live among the ifs,
forever
outside the lines
of happiness
like I was forgotten
here the day you left.

What I wouldn't give
to undo it all
if only
I could be the person
I should have been,
then I would be
all that you dreamed I was.