You Have Changed

You’ve changed and I don’t know why. Have I done something wrong? Have I done something to offend you or upset you? Why have you changed? You aren’t interested in me anymore. Once upon a time you would sit in rapt attention as I explained things to you, as I told you about the things I had done. The things which mattered to me. I thought you liked them too. You seemed interested and it was a genuine interest as you asked me questions and admired me for what I told you about. Do you remember those conversations? I do, although I must admit there are days when they seem such a distant memory to what we have now that I wonder if I made them up or dreamt them. Those afternoons where we lay in bed, the world so far away from us as we held one another and made plans. The world was ours to conquer wasn’t it? We made such grand plans, you and I, with nothing to stop us or hold us back. Except ourselves. How have we come to be so far apart? Where did it go wrong? How did these changes happen? What caused them? We were united as one. We did not know where one of us started and where the other ended, we were so entwined. I was happy. I thought you were too. You seemed happy. Tell me you were happy.

We did everything together. I never wanted to be anywhere other than your side. You completed me. I completed you. Two halves at long last united. Two lost souls who were wandering through the wilderness and then we found one another and all became wonderful. I did not dare to believe it was happening at first. After so many had failed, those who offered so much yet turned out to be pretenders with nothing but failure dripping from those promising lips. How I yearned to find the right one and just as I had almost given up all hope, along you came. My saviour. I knew from the moment I saw you that we belonged together. I could sense it and that first kiss, well, I can still feel the tingling up and down my spine even now, after all this time, after everything that has been said and done.

Why did you change? I did nothing wrong. I gave you my all. I believed in us but perhaps I have let you down, perhaps I have failed you in some way. Is there another? Is that why your eyes no longer shine when you look at me? Is that why your special smile has not been seen in these parts for too long? Do my tales and stories bore you now? Does the re-telling of these famous tales grow stale? Perhaps you have found someone else, someone who gives you what you want, someone new and exciting? Is that it? Is that why you have changed. Have you found sanctuary in the arms of another and now you have become malleable in their hands as you once were in mine? Do you remember how you said that my touch brought you to life and how you had merely existed beforehand? Do you remember taking my hand as we walked mile upon mile, never faltering from having something to say to one another. How we used to talk? Now I am lucky if I get a sentence from you as you take refuge in a monosyllabic citadel, seeming as if you are more content to reside there than with me. Your words used to flow, enchanting and marvellous and how I delighted to hear what you had to say. You could make the mundane magical and all through that perfect and delicious mouth of yours. Does that mouth still weave its magic for someone else now? Do the words feel leaden, your mouth full of dust when you talk to me? I still listen. I still give you the attention but it no longer works as it did before. I know it is not me that has changed. I never do. I can see that it is you that has changed but I am at a loss to understand why this happened. Believe me, I have spent long hours working out everything that has been said, what has not been said and all the acts and omissions. I have played them, replayed them and chopped back and forth, like some detective analysing CCTV footage in the hope of finding that one clue. That one lead, that certain something that will allow me to understand how we lost that certain something.

Is it that you want me to change? Do you need me to transform into something different? Is that it? I will be whatever you want me to be if only we can have what we once had. You have changed but if you need me to do so too, if that is what it takes to recover ourselves then I am willing. Tell me, just give me a sign, some kind of signal so I know what to do. Your wall of silence gives me no indication of what I must do in order to save us. Do you do that because all your time and attention must be saved for someone else and therefore you have none to give me? Have they come like some silent-footed thief and stolen away the person who I want more than anything on this earth? Perhaps that is what has really happened. You have not changed but rather the real you, the you that makes everything matter again, has been acquired by a pilferer. Has your soul been stolen by another? Have they taken it when I was regrettably distracted and have they now placed it in a gilded locker, far away from me, leaving me with just the husk, the image of what once was? Perhaps that is what has happened. I know you have changed but perhaps, just perhaps it was not of your doing. Maybe an outside agent has influenced you, brought about this alteration, neither seeking not obtaining our consent to this heinous act. Yes, that must be what it is for I know you would not willingly leave me. How could you? Why would you? Why leave what we have and leave me with so little when once we had so much? You have changed but it is at the sordid and filthy direction of another which gave you no choice. Did you warn me? Perhaps you did but I did not notice. Did you cry out and seek my help? Maybe you did but I was distracted and I did not hear. Tell me now, tell me how I can help you. I will do anything to win what we had back. That brilliant, loving, passionate and above all seemingly perfect union that you and I created before this change occurred.

Please, I am begging you, just tell me what I have to do. I am lost from ideas, I have no more ingenuity or guile to achieve what needs to be done and I need your assistance more than ever before. Don’t let them win, do not let those who are jealous of what we have, the green-eyed interlopers who have watched and waited for that moment to drive a wedge between us. Don’t let them make your change permanent. Fight, fight with me, for me so we can succeed and shine again. I cannot stand where we are now. The pain and weakness that sweeps me tears me apart, makes me feel disgusting and wretched. I cannot stand to be this way for it causes me such great distress as I look over to you watch you, unnoticed by you. You are not who I knew you once as. I do not recognise the person who sits across from me now. So much is alien, so much has become foreign. I don’t feel like I know you anymore. Or that I ever did.