Souvenirs

There are no more memories left to make;
we'll make no more attempts for old times sake.
No more movies, concerts, parties and plays,
no more calls to ask: "Are you free today?"

And if someone else, who didn't know, asks
to know what it was that happened to us,
then say: "He didn't know how to give up."
and I'll admit that I fucked this all up.

But I won't deceive to hide my regret;
you're sure to be a hard one to forget.
Yet, with no roads through this patch of briar
I mourn this bridge I help set on fire.

And should I deserve another try,
I'll learn to know when to avert my eyes.
Though I can't bear your happiness alone,
I'll still be here if you're out on your own.

So I'll wait till you're as lonely as me
to see if friends again we're right to be.
But for now, you're just a shirt on my door
and just a tea set sitting on the floor.

This might be the most narrative thing I've written. I like rhyming exercises when you are in fact trying very hard to fit a certain meaning into a fixed structure. You don't want to compromise what you actually feel, but neither is it totally possible to get everything just right. There is something about that which parallels life. We're taking what we want and trying to fit that within something which is quite rigid, and we feel as if we have no control over. But at the end of the day, you have to realize that in the end, these rules are your own. It's possible to simply decide to stop playing.