I Release You

I thought I'd let you go many times before, but the truth is that I had just buried the love I felt for you deep inside of me while I treaded on the surface of my life

At times, I'd actually convinced myself that it had gone away, but the memory of you would appear and suddenly I'd recognize that lump in the bottom of my throat alerting me to the lie that I was living..Yet I chose to bury it again and again choosing false logic over love

Until one day it all broke.....And in a flash I saw how I had spent the past 10 years of my life grasping at a memory, fantasizing about our happy ending, meanwhile sacrificing my now....

So today I grieve a love that never really had a chance to start...a love that was captured in its purest state, a love that died out of false agreements and cowardice to live what was in my heart

I release the memory of the way my eyes met yours on the beach in Renanca

I release the way we dove carelessly in the frigid ocean later drying ourselves and taking the bus to eat lunch with your Tia Buena Tela

I release ......

I release the words of Pablo Neruda and the way we danced in the street to the music that pulsated in our bodies

I release the moments we spent dancing in your living room to Gypsy Kings and David Gray

I release the way we made love of a different kind that night when all you touched was my heart

I release..............

I release the comfort of sitting by your mother's side drinking tea, eating pan con palta, and  talking about life

I release the moment when she called me an angel sent by your father to brighten the first Christmas spent without him

I release the moment when we made love, wrapped around each others bodies, eyes open and tears rolling down our faces because we had found our home in each other

I release the time we drank wine out of a box sitting on the banks of Rio Valdivia

I release our dream of  a casa de campo on the hill in Niebla, in the special spot that only we knew

I release.................

I release the adrenaline of hitchhiking to Chiloe and watching you dance the cuenca as we waited for a friendly passerby to stop and give us a ride

I release the moment that you bid me farewell at the bus terminal in Vina and the way you wore your cap

I release all the ways I fantasized about the way our story would end

I release the hold you've had on my heart for the past ten years, I release the broken record of our love that's been playing over and over in my mind.

Thank you for the incredible memories but now I release the hold that they have had over me for these past ten years

I release them so that I may live now, present, available to love and be loved