You Keep The Scars

You Keep The Scars

I fell in love with your kindness,
your gentleness,
your openness,
your loneliness.

I let my heart go.
I gave it free rein
and didn’t think of any consequences.
I turned from all I’d ever been.

I never thought twice about what I was doing.
There was no guilt.
There was only joy at having found you.
But then came great pain,
more than I’d ever known,
because even though I fell in love with you
you never felt the same.

You were so wonderfully kind
and so perfectly cruel.
I thought I could see into the real you
but that’s probably not true.

You played me well
but in the end you found yourself
falling for me a little
and ran back into your shell.
You weren’t ready to give up your freedom or move on.

You were hiding in your past,
clinging on to someone long gone,
just like I’m doing now.

If your feelings for her
were as strong as mine for you
then I’m sorry you had to experience it.
It’s an incredible pain

But I’ve learned something.
And even though I don’t yet know all I learned
this I do know,
you keep the scars when you’ve been burned.