From a distance…

Scarred you for the hundredth time
How can I expect you to forgive?
I was everything you ever wanted, you’d said
Now, you can’t stand even the sight of me

What was I supposed to do?
How was I supposed to choose?
To tell you the truth and see you leave
or mask it up and keep you close

What would you do, I asked but you never replied
Watching you from a distance, I know
I’d still have chosen you even if that was with a defaming lie

A hundred lies I weaved. A hundred tales I spun
Wondering always how could you love one?
So much, to not ever doubt them, suspect them
of acts so foolish, so cruel, so killing

Each time you looked into my eyes
I feared if you saw the damning truth
But what did you see?
Did your eyes ever give you away!

And hurting you, I know, I was
But to see you walk away is the last thing I want
And baby, that’s why, I kept the truth
But it was a treacherous thing to do
Watching you from a distance, I see how it’s torturing you

There you are,
Standing, perhaps waiting, at the other side of the street
The dark night keeps me cloaked through, hiding my entity
You look up from the book just for a moment, to right where I stay rooted
My heart skips a beat! Can you feel me, so close to you?

Your fingers fumble with the pages of your book
There’s nervousness, I see, in your moves
It’s dark and deserted for the two of us
But for you, it’s just you!

I‘ve always known you to walk the distances
Then what are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for?
I’m tempted to leave my hidden stance and walk upto you
Just then a cab pulls into the drive and there you are gone

From a distance,
I see what never happened
or in my mind, it did
I did walk upto you despite the rising beat
I see you staring at me, or are you staring right through me?
What I hadn’t noticed until then, however,
Is, the smeared mascara and the dried tears on your cheeks

You carefully avert my pleading gaze
And beyond myself, I hear these words escape

I wanted to keep you close and how blind could I be?
That with every lie, I was only pushing you away
Baby, I never wanted to lose you and so I kept the truth
But now I see the fool I’ve been, because I’ve lost you anyway

Watching us from a distance
I almost believe
that you hug me, that I kiss your lips
that you forgive me, with a solemn promise

 A leaf, dried lifeless, falls at my feet
As I stand rooted, under the tree
And while I regret at the lost chances
I realize that’s how it’s always gonna be

Me, watching you from a distance
You, walking away from a distance

~~~~~~~

Asha Seth