one from our trip to strasbourg

Funny how things change,
and one minute your arms
are wrapped round them.
Your head beside theirs
on the pillow.
Your hands stroke
their tummy around and down,
and then you chew her ear.

You say anything and everything,
i cant even remember now, but,
my ache, it drags me back
along a path into the past,
and tells me there was something there
that now feels lost.

I know its there.
I know i could put my arms around you
and take you back.
I dont know. I saw his photo,
I saw your smiles,
glances up from the pillows,
a snigger and a swipe at him,
as he tried to take your picture
in the shower.

And I remember back, to you
sat cross legged under cascades
of water, telling me how it soothed you.
Sat with your legs hung
over the bridge at the English Garden -
you said you needed water.

I thought how melodramatic
but nonetheless how passionate
and emotive you were.
How unafraid to let me in. Im sure
you're as close to him right now,
as we were back then.

Maybe closer. Maybe he loves you
harder than I did.
And you him.
Maybe what we had was nothing in comparison,
and it is like a joke to you now.
A fake relationship, one you had
when you were younger,
and would let anyone in. No more.

Not for you. You're twenty five now,
or nearly. And will i send you a card
this year?
Last year, you and he
had just got together.
I was working, doing exams
not thinking about you.
I neglected you.
But now it is an empty stomach
that accompanies me to you.

The memories that fill it are nutritionless
like macdonalds, i suppose.
A crude comparison for what we had i know.
But the memories stave off hunger,
though they make me feel no better,
Only worse.
Perhaps I should not have come here.