Your Memory

For so long I took such great comfort in simply loving your memory.
It was so easy to love.
It was always there what I wanted it to be there,
but fled when I couldn't stand having it around.
I never had to worry about how your memory felt about me,
I never had to worry about if I was being to open with my feelings,
I never had to worry about annoying your memory.
I no longer had to walk on my tip-toes,
wondering which way the wind was blowing that day.
Loving your memory freed me from a bondage of uncertainty that loving you had bound me in.
I could love your memory freely, without restrictions.
Freely? Really free? Really, loving your memory was the opitomy of restrictive.
Loving your memory kept me in an invisible chokehold for far too long.
In learning to love another, when I felt my heart beat for another,
My love for your memory took a punch to the stomach and your memory finally loosed its grip.
At last, I could breathe freely.
Gasping for air, free from your memory's bondage, I walked away from your memory.
I walked away without even a pinch of desire to turn my head back to look to the past.
Not even a hint of longing for a better time when your memory reciprocated my love.
Today, I find myself realizing the warped reality that I created for myself by loving your memory.
I wasted precious years of my youth idealizing your memory.
Remembering your memory and loving it as if it were a saint.
I wasted so much time yearning after your memory when I could have been loving someone real.
I wasted so much time that I could have put towards a new relationship,
rather than picking at my scabbed heart.
Today, I realized this because my heart is close to another.
A real, breathing person.
I had forgotten what it feels like to have a mutual relationship.
For so long, I had to be ashamed of my pathetic love for your memory.
I had to keep it hidden, never admiting that your love's chokehold hadn't let loose quite yet.
I pretended to be free, I should have been free years before.
But at last, your memory has no power over me.
Today and forevermore, I have been rid of your memory.