Running Towards You - Waiting There

"all that time i spent walking there, i could have been running towards you instead" - "all that time you spent walking there, i was standing still"

“Running Towards You”

all that time i spent walking there

i could have been running towards you instead
but i was tracing the cracks in the sidewalk
as if they held answers
as if broken things could tell me where to go.

i mistook motion for meaning
feet dragging through days I didn’t want to live in,
eyes forward but never seeing the future
you were standing in.

i told myself the journey mattered
that maybe you’d be there when i arrived
but i walked like someone afraid of arriving,
hands in my pockets
heart in a box
fear dressed as patience.

and maybe you waited.
maybe you watched me stall at every corner
talking to ghosts that only taught me how to be alone,
while you stood like a question mark
at the end of the sentence i was too scared to write.

if i had run,
would we have collided instead of missed?
would we have been
the kind of story that ends in fireworks,
not white flags and silence?

but regret is a slow walker too.
it doesn’t chase.
it strolls beside me, whispering,
“see what you could’ve had
if you’d just turned left
or looked back once
or believed in something softer than survival.”

i don’t hate the path i chose,
but i carry your absence
like a key i never used.

all that time i spent walking there,
i could have been running towards you instead.
and maybe, just maybe 
you would have opened the door.

--

“Waiting There”

all that time you spent walking there

i was standing still,

thinking if i stayed quiet enough,

you’d hear my heart echo

and follow the sound home.

i lit beacons in every word I never said,

left space in every plan

hoping you’d fill it.

watched every door,

jumped at every knock,

but it was never you.

they told me not to wait,

that anyone worth it doesn’t make you wait 

but they didn’t know how your name

sounded in my head

like music i wasn’t ready to stop dancing to.

i watched your shadow from a distance,

watched you hesitate 

and every time you paused,

i told myself

maybe this time,

maybe now,

maybe finally.

but you walked like you were trying not to fall apart,

and i couldn’t run to meet you 

not when you didn’t even know

if you wanted to be found.

i had to be a place,

not a rescue.

i had to be something solid

in case you ever stopped drifting.

i carved patience into poetry,

memorized the sky so i wouldn’t forget

what hope looked like

while you wandered under it.

i wanted to be the finish line

you didn’t know you were racing toward.

but you never arrived 

and after a while,

i stopped standing still.

all that time you spent walking there,

i was here 

arms open,

heart brave,

waiting.

but i couldn’t wait forever.