Soulmates?

When I found you, I didn't feel whole, or completed.

No.. it felt more like the frayed edge where
my soul was torn from yours at the source
was suddenly re-threaded and delicately mended,
as if all souls are ripped from a mighty sheet
of satiny material, and ours were originally
side by side.

When I met you, it was as if, finally,
we were once again seamlessly attached down the middle
and fraying collectively on the outer hems of us,
like the beginnings of a textile jigsaw puzzle.

This isn't a Hollywood movie.
We're not a pair of blank canvas characters
who are, conveniently, the same pretty, golden age
and have nothing to lose and everything to gain
in the two hours or so that they frolic across our screens.

Those fraying edges haven't been left trailing all our lives,
I know that. We tie them to other pretty things,
we learn to sew, beautifully sometimes.
Maybe that's what that guy meant when he talked about
life's rich tapestry.


(I remember one time you said to me
it would've been beautiful
and even though I knew what you meant
I wanted to hear you actually say it so I said
what?
and you looked at me
fuck it was devastating
and you said
this, us, would've been beautiful
and then you stood up and went,
and I knew that you had to go then
or you never would have left again.)


So.
What have I learned today?

I've learned that sometimes, perfection
exists, albeit briefly.
I've learned that I can sew, really well,
which is damn lucky.
I've learned that sometimes, even the truth
can happen too late.
I've learned that sometimes,
you've just got to let it go and learn to live without.
For a soul mate