looking over the edge of a cliff

on my 6am drive to work,

i pull up next to a white truck at the stoplight

and for a moment,

i think it's you in the driver's seat.

remember that time my car wouldn't start

and you gave me the keys to your truck?

told me to take it home on the snowy roads

and to pick you back up in 12 hours.

i just stood there,

clutching that keychain to my chest,

thinking about how everything would be different

if i had met you two years prior.

now i see your life through pictures

and wonder what it would feel like to be the one

biking across the countryside with you.

if i'd feel free or if i'd still feel like a caged bird,

just in a different country.

when i was younger,

everything felt so black or white.

so catastrophic.

one wrong decision and my whole life was ruined.

not being with you

felt like that wrong decision at the time.

now i drive to the mountains every other week

and dive beneath the alpine waters

and i only think about you

when i need inspiration to write something.

but you think of me.

you look at the life you've built,

and wonder what it would be it would feel like to

have created something entirely different with me.

it wouldn't have been as peaceful as your

nuclear family and backyard garden and weekend trips.

but you weren't looking for peace, were you?

you think of me in the quiet moments —

when the life you've built starts to feel a little too small —

when you wish you were with someone

who made you feel more alive —

when you regret not having the guts to risk it all.

so you send me secret messages through the trees

and i try to ignore them,

but sometimes i allow myself to look.

and there you are again,

somewhere between

the life i chose

and the one i almost did.