Gone Now

Sometimes, longing for a past that maybe didn't exist -
We both wanted it - there was something we missed
as it came along and passed us by.  If it was ever there at all.
Don't know how, but it's gone now.

What was the same became different -
A song with unsteady melody and changing lyrics -
I knew, but you didn't,
Maybe.  Or you did but pretended to forget,
Better to be living in blissful ignorance, Today
not giving room for forgiving by either of us.
Don't know how, but it's gone now.

It was the way we laughed, the way we cared,
daring to be truthful and unscared.
Was it a youthful fantasy?  Was it
Time that separated us, one year too different,
or did we cheat time?  Ten years of no fears.
Don't know how, but that's gone now.

You asked me to choose - it was news to me,
but maybe you knew I was waiting to be free.  Maybe
It was time to go then - I don't know.
But I refused to choose - I didn't want to lose
the friends I once had.
Don't know how, but some of them are gone now.

But a demand like that is permanent - you can't
take it back, burying it in some beautiful-tragic field,
a murdered corpse lying in wait under the flowers,
no matter how hard you try.  That corpse demands
discovery, and it demanded an answer.
An answer I gave - that our friendship had died - now
a Corpse (from natural causes, perhaps?).
You got mad, I got sad.
Don't know how, but that friendship's gone now.

I saw it coming and felt it, too.
And the sadness clung to me for months
before that phone call,
like sweat to my skin on a humid afternoon -
no matter how much I wiped away, it remained
and continued to build.
I don't want to fight, I know it was right,
But I don't know how.
It's still not gone now.