Unlearning and Re-Learning

I have always and will always love you.

I have not always loved you the same, though.
At first I loved you immaturely.
Possessively. Unsecured and clinging. Lusty and out of necessity.

Then I loved you much the same. But complacently.
I became aware it could be better. And of how it could be better.
And only then I realized the gap between us.

As the years went on it got farther and further apart.
I feel like I stayed behind so the gap would maybe close in so that I could walk with you.
Always ahead of you at the zoo. The museum. You would be behind, still reading what I had read in half the time. And so I lingered. Eager to keep walking but almost as eager to stay with you.

Until one day I realized what staying behind meant to Me.
So I asked you for something I needed.
Something that not having was literally eating me away in percentages of myself.

And you said Yes.

And so I indulged and I blossomed and flourished.
Your love freed me.

But it also freed me from you.
And now the gap grows ever wider.

And the love continues to change.
Now I love you where you are and from where I am.
And I look forward to the gap continuing to widen.
It hurts in a necessary kind of way.
Like birth.


I know why the pain is there
I know what it is meant for
I know it will stop soon... just not precisely when.

And so I labor.
To love you.
This perpetually different kind of way.