Everything I Never Had the Courage to Say

this is why we were problematic

why couldn't we have started like everybody else?
You— with a clean slate, devoid of the stains of your past
and me— with my heart unbroken and my doubts, nonexistent.
Why can't we be together like everybody else?
Without her popping up in your mind everytime that you look at me.
And I can justify the guilt everytime you touched me and it's his hands I feel in place of yours.
Why can't we figure this out, just like we used to figure it out with them?

Maybe I'm the problem.
And this is all my fault.
Maybe I'm the one who just couldn't let go of what was. Couldn't accept what is.
And what it is is very simple.

You are simply not him,
and I am simply not her.

You once said I was nothing like her
and I regret not being able to ask if you preferred it that way.

But haven't you ever wondered why I never said the same thing?
Because then, I'd be lying.

The truth is, you were so much like him.
In ways I didn't even realize.
Until one day,
I was sitting on the front porch
and I began to see the patterns.
Little things that were once trivial,
they started making sense.
It was like he left you a trail
and you were walking in his footsteps.
Like he wrote you the script
and told you exactly how to play the part.

And I think that maybe one more reason
why you and I didn't work was because I was stuck, like I had always been,
simply going around in circles
with someone who is no longer him.