Picking Up Pieces

Now I'm there. After the longest and darkest time. I'm right here, where you once stood, when you were ahead of me, when you judged what was best. And by then I was dumbstruck. By then I didn't understand you. By then I was the one to believe I had gotten crushed by you, the one who had been left in the blue, once more to be trampled on... I looked everywhere for something I done wrong, for something I had done to make you be drifting on your way. Maybe I looked too hard. Maybe you can't really say any of us did anything wrong. And we didn't either, did we? All that disappeared were promises, promises so empty that they dissolved already when we spoke them, all that I lost was my ability to believe in words.
Someone else took the place I stepped away from, with time. Someone else stands there now, wounded and torn, confused, looking for what went wrong, looking for what could have been different. And I took over the place you used to hover. Where you looked back over your shoulder at me, crumbling, falling to pieces. And there's a part of you still left here, a part of the role you took on to play that I never got to see, that you never let show.
I close my eyes, breathe it in. Think.
When you left me, I broke. I was blank. I made theories in my mind. I made up stories. It was easier to fill my head up than to just stop and feel the emptiness. The blank space, after you. And in the end... I settled for one theory, seeming more likely than any other would, at least then, at least at the time.
I told myself you left me here because I'd fallen for you. Because you knew how hard I would hit the ground, and you weren't going to be around to pick up the pieces when I did.
But now... just now... just here, where there's a piece of you still around, I wonder to myself. I wonder over another theory. Something that seems completely obvious from this new point of view, but something I didn't even ponder in the days, back where it all seemed so difficult, when I was still in shock.
Maybe that wasn't the reason. Maybe, the real reason you left was because you'd fallen yourself, and you knew you wouldn't be around to pick yourself up when you did.
And I only wandered here afterwards, finding a small piece.
I don't know why I find comfort in this thought. It should make me even more crushed, knowing you don't feel anything anymore, knowing you left me cause I reminded you of what couldn't be. Knowing... you're over me by now. Or you wouldn't be speaking to me, again.
The recurring feeling just makes me think, and think, and think. I'm standing where you used to stand, someone else is crawling where I used to crawl. Someone who will sooner or later get up on his knees, and stand, too. Maybe you went on to running. Maybe it'll end with you soaring. And then I'll take over your running, and then in the end, we'll both have wings again, even if it's not at the same time, or in the same sky, or even in the same... universe.
I doubt any of my theories are right. I doubt any of my feelings make up for what can't be set straight by my thoughts. But I feel them anyway.
I ponder, anyway.
FJAERIL in the JAR