If I was the light I would make you see

If I was a star you’d love me back

When I look back I realise that it started when I left. One glorious summers day – I was at the seaside. At home, my mother closed the last box and my father packed it all away. They shut the front door for the last time. And with that, we were gone. I never got to say goodbye.

For years I dreamt that I was back home again, for I still believe that this was my one true home (truth be told I’ve never been sentimental about leaving a place since). I would relive such happy moments or imagine new ones that, at night, seemed painfully real. I would wake up and feel that ache in my heart again.

Day after day I would wish that I could see my old friends again and I feared as each year passed that soon you would not remember me at all.

But that, my friend, does not seem to have been the case. I do not know how it happened, but you came back into my life. I remember one Christmas night – we talked, we laughed, we joked. Back then, things seemed normal so perhaps I need to look back further. To a summer before. I have a significant other who is making me wait. I’m angry because he is not here. But I bump into you and we talk. Now my other half walks by and you ask if we are together. I say no. Even now, I don’t know why I said that. And I don’t know how you knew or even why you’d care.

Trawling back further I remember talking about your insecurities. I understood.

Then you brought me out dancing one night. Despite my own insecurities and complexes, I was never ashamed to dance with you. I didn’t care who saw. I still don’t.

I remember seeing you one day, and I believe that this is my earliest memory. You were standing by your car and I walked past. I recognised you. I thought you had forgotten me. But you waved. I was alive in your eyes. You remembered who I was.

FC