My heart felt heavy

My heart felt heavy with a love I could not share;
A hopeless love;
And memories of a place and time where
Dreams were a reality and life was light as air.
Sweet memories, turned to pain, knowing:
Those days, that should have stayed forever,
I’d never know again.

And so I tramped these sombre streets,
Where faceless people passed me by,
And gave no thought to how I felt:
If I should laugh or I should cry.
Where foreign walls served only to remind me
Of the walls that kept me in; 
Or where I’d rather be;
Where blank-faced people with unseeing eyes passed unaware
That I wasn’t really part of what was there –
A lonely exile; once cast in the role of lover
In a play that didn’t last.

Then one day, that seemed at first as futile as the rest,
You came into my life with your tender smile, your laughing eyes
And the dying embers of my soul began again to glow.
Your love of life itself seemed to overflow and thus replenish mine.
And more, your zest for living offered me inspiration.
Thus, as our friendship grew, the past slipped quietly behind me
And the present took its rightful place in the focus of my mind.

In your presence, the sullen streets assumed a new persona,
Bright and gay; with friendly walls that beckoned to us,
Whispering as we passed their timeless histories,
Echoing in our wake their approval of my newfound happiness.
And every passer-by knew how I felt about you, only I…
I was unsure.
I could not forget another day that did not last.
I was afraid of playing that same role in which I’d once been cast.
I could not tell if it was you or she – this presence that I felt.
I was confused. I needed time. But there was none –
The cards already had been dealt.

I never was a gambler.
I’d never learned to calculate the odds.
But then, perhaps in life there are no odds.
Perhaps, the mystery of life is not: knowing how to win,
But knowing when you’ve won,
And when each game is over there is no need to despair.
There will always be another game,
Another hand to share.
But O those lonely days between,
What happens to me there?