To the one who went a different way

I thought you were the one. I was sure we were a match made in heaven - or at least as close a perfect match we could ever hope to find on earth. We loved the same things. We thought the same thoughts. We laughed at the same jokes and sang the same songs. We even dreamed with the same imaginative passion.
You and I could have fit together just right. You could have been the peanut butter. I could have been the jelly. But our perfect sandwich of love was never made. Turns out you and I were the match made in heaven that never made it to earth.  
If only we could could get the timing right. That's what I used to say. If I wouldn't have been with him and you hadn't been with her. If you hadn't been out there and I had, for once, just been here. But our lines, always running with the same beat, never ran in the same direction. You were always going one way while I was always going another; our lives only crossing for fleeting moments so sweet in their tenderness and yet so bitter in their goodbyes.
Oh, how I wish I could have pressed pause on those moments. If only the world could have stopped turning so love could have lingered. If only we could have slowed down long enough to see the stars in each other's eyes. If only we could have seen the perfection that was right there in front of us all along then maybe you wouldn't be my one that got away.
But with a eternal vow the book of what you and I could have been was slammed shut. Your "I do" marked for you a ceremonial beginning but did you know it was my silent end? Your forever became my never. Your love my loss.
Maybe we all have a "one that got away." You're mine. You were the perfect match that is matched with someone else. And I... well I've been here pinning for who I can't have, imagining a life I will never live and dreaming of your love I'll never share.
For years I have lived mourning the loss of what we could have been. It has been secretly breaking my heart and causing me pain but I've never dared to tell a single soul. You closed the book on you and I long ago but all this time I've been keeping my finger in the page, holding out the faintest hope for a different ending. Until now.
I am finally ready to close my book, too. I am ready to say my final farewell because I finally realize you weren't the one who got away. You were the one who had to go a different way.
I am finally ready to declare a happy ending to the story of you and I. What we didn't become is what we were never meant to be. Our lines crossed just as they should have, just as they were meant to, and not a moment longer. You and I were perfect the match for a precisely perfect time in life but not forever.
You had to be my one who went a different way so that each of our lives could one day have their very own perfect story book endings.