after a while

i know i'm gonna be ok
until i see your face again
a glimpse of your familiar smile
amongst the crowd.
it could be someone else, in fact
i can't really recall your features
i once claimed to be mine only.
the way you speak has probably changed,
with time your gestures surely altered,
still, i recognise you in the passers by
and feel the cosy touch of your hand
when i accidentally bump into a stranger.
i have marks left on my skin where your body used to touch me,
sometimes i examine them with pride like battlescars.
i miss you like a missing limb
that has been rotting, i know it's better cut off,
yet a phantom aching wouldn't let me sleep.
we did have quite a story, don't you think?
i can remember being so excited
about telling how we met to our children,
now never to be born, erased from every possible future.
are you ok?
it's difficult to think a part of me now lives its own life.
sometimes at night, i go to where you work
and press my cheek against the cold glass door.
you are not there, but maybe, if i knocked,
you would come out like always,
let me in, make me some coffee,
ask me how my day was.
and then, after a while, i leave
and let myself be swallowed by the city's crossroads.