A Matter of Perception

In response to Claudette’s weekly writing challenge #10: Discernment 
http://claudetteellinger.wordpress.com/

I watched David Cook on American Idol a few nights ago. He sang his new song, Come Back to Me. I have been haunted ever since. Words whispering in my ear that I wish to resist, but they are ever so persistent. The chorus of David’s new song is:

So I’ll let you go
I’ll set you free
And when you see what you need to see
When you find you come back to me

This piece is a tangled knot of memories and perceptions that span a period of over ten years. But, it is also a direct response to listening to the above.

A Matter of Perception

Years ago, you told me
that you needed to go
find yourself. Yet now,
you say that you haven’t
been able to see yourself
in the mirror for years.

You used to say that you
would never leave without me,
even if that meant I must be
tied up, dragged along
kicking and screaming.
Yet, that night you left alone,
as the back door slammed,
you were screaming that you
still loved me.

After all this time, I remembered
the dream. In it, we stood together
as I told you that someone
must always remain behind,
and that would be me. But, I find
that I left long ago, my heart went
with you, kicking and screaming.

Now you are back, still holding
that heart, but no more than a ghost
fading fast, mere whisper of what you
were in the past, and I find,
when I look in my mirror, someone
I might never have known.

Elizabeth Crawford  4/4/09