20 Years Ago

You were the one who changed my life, sure you were,

but I don’t really want to give you that now, now that you’re gone.

It was probably a timing thing, more than anything we did,

I was young back then, you’d been around.

Forever, we used to say, that was our thing, whispered it to each other,

and we meant it at the time, I know that much, sure we did.

But that was before I learned forever had a time limit on it, naive me,

you should have told me, let me in on the secret that only you knew.

Soul mates we used to say, to each other and the world.

You left 20 years ago, you walked away, 

I wouldn’t give everything up and let you take care of me,

 – because, I’d learned by then, that came with conditions too – 

when someone else would.