When You Were a Bike Ride Away (For Audrye)

I denied you.

Wrote you off.

Jerked you around.

Fibbed to you.

Took you for granted.

Took advantage of your generosity.

Abused your kindness.

Used your body.

And yet. And Yet.

Our friendship endured.

 

My restlessness,

and curiosity

turned what once was a hike across the cemetery–or a ten minute bike ride,

into a 400 dollar flight

full of questions and complications.

 

I miss the convenience.

The late night walks alone

wondering how you felt, how I felt,

on my way home after

the old movies that I couldn’t just watch with anyone,

the music that I just couldn’t share with anybody,

the dark jokes that only you would roll your eyes at.

I loved that I was absurd, impractical, and ridiculous.

And I think you secretly found it exciting and unpredictable.

 

Your practicality that once repelled me,

only makes you seem more of an attraction.

I once wondered if you wanted enough out of life

but maybe I was too complicated–

shirking anything in life that resembled simplicity.

Maybe it felt too natural.

So easy that it scared me.

 

Had I bought in then,

what would it have guaranteed?

Would you (or I) even believe me if I said

I’m all in now?

So many changes that are

the result of so many failed experiments;

necessary experiences that

only strengthened my resolve

for things I know now to be real.

Your love was not enough then,

and my lust ebbed and flowed with the wind.

 

Fast forward to today.

Where I finally have the space to appreciate

how much we shared.

The real part.

The part that makes me wonder

what it would be like

if you were still only a bike ride away.

 

~Edward Austin Robertson

 

Tags: Edward Austin Robertson, When You Were a Bike Ride Away