One day you'll grow up

 One day you'll grow up --

Ive been waiting for you to do that for a while but you weren't quite ready back then. It's what I always hoped you'd do for me but hope now you'll do on your own.

One day you'll grow up

and know deep in your soul that the washing must be done before you run out of clean clothes, and the dishes covered in last week's scraps of food will rot in the sink and stink up the house if you don't put them in the dishwasher, and the cats need to be fed and have clean water every day, and the garden required mowing at least once a month.

One day you'll grow up

and it will all make sense to you that clothes go in drawers and can be hung up on hangers, and rubbish can go in the bin under the sink, and then once a week you can take the bins out to the curb to be emptied, and dinner can be cooked and we can sit together at the kitchen table and discuss our day together.

One day you'll grow up 

and realise what it means to be a man - not in the literal masculine sense but in the sense of caring about how you lived and loved in a space with another - and not take for granted the multitudes of love and patience I gave you, unconditionally. 

One day you'll grow up

and realize that I was not trying to change you beyond your inherent self, for the worse. I realise I enabled you too much, and hope that without me there now, you find the self you should have always been without me getting in the way. Maybe you will think of me as the one that got away; as the flower that slowly wilts moving into Autumn as the weather cools and the world dulls. And then maybe you'll realise I was not the only cause of becoming duller all on my own.y

One day you'll grow up

and I would have forgotten all about you by then.

And I hope you regret the way you spoke to me,

And the way you treated me less than anything,

And you'll lie awake at night staring at the ceiling regretting all the horrible ways you tortured me,

Just as I lie awake now trying to come to terms with the guilt, the regret, the hurt, the betrayal, and the exhaustion you caused.

And years from now when I have forgotten you and all the yous like you,

I hope when you think of me, you think about you.