Beccah Bath Poet Free verse

I thought I knew you

I thought I knew you
I knew the way you smiled,
The things that made you laugh,
The softness in your voice when you said my name.

I knew the person I thought you were
Maybe that’s where I went wrong

I took every good thing you gave me and build a person around it 
I filled in the empty spaces with everything I wanted you to be
I mistook potential for promise
Kindness for character
Words for truth

I thought I might actually love you
But I loved the version of you I created

I spent a year learning you,
Choosing you, 
Believing in you.

A year of memories,
Conversations,
Patience,
Forgiveness 
And second chances.

A year of giving you parts of myself 
I believed I was giving them to someone who deserved them.
Then you showed me who you were when there was nothing left to gain from pretending.

And suddenly everything became clear.
You hadn’t changed
I had.

I stopped looking at you through the eyes of someone who wanted to believe 
And for the first time,
I saw exactly who you were.

And god was that the hardest part.

Not losing you
Realising I had spent a year investing in someone I never truly knew.

Because I can’t get that year back 
I can’t take back the effort,
The feelings,
The nights I stayed,
The times I forgave,
Or the future I imagined.

And maybe I lied to myself 
When I said that, I didn't regret it.

Because I do.

I regret the year.
The chances.
The patience.
The forgiveness.
The parts of myself I gave away.
I regret how long I spent trying to understand someone I have never truly known.

But maybe that’s okay
Maybe I don’t have to make what happened beautiful just because I wanted it to be.

Maybe I regret it. 
Maybe I can be angry that I gave a year to someone who was never who I thought they were.
And maybe that’s the easiest part of it all.
Because now I can walk away from the person I thought you were
And you made it easy for me to do so.

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