Poem: Would There Be A Difference

Would There Be A Difference

if you were here, or had been
when I came?  I do not know,
I do not know if it was too late, already,
but it seemed to be possible,
if you had been here.  You made promises,
and I wanted to ask if you would keep them,
wanted to find out if it was ever true.
I like to think it was true, like to believe,
but it does not matter now.
If it was ever meant to be true,
you didn't follow through at all,
you left, and I did not have a way to follow,
a way to be part of that.  You were gone
and that was all that came of it,
and when I came to find you,
you were gone again, were an absence
that everyone around me felt.
And then you were dead,
were gone in the one way
that does mean gone
and not just absent,
and it was too late,
and I am not so sad
for what you did not do,
I am not so sad
for what you might have done,
not now, not when you cannot be here.
It would have been good, would have helped,
maybe, but it is not what I miss,
not now.  It is not the thing I miss at all.