Not Exactly A New Poem

In the process of unpacking boxes from the attic today I found this poem written on an old piece of unlined and yellowed school paper.  It dates back to my time in college but I have no recollection of writing it, nor can I reconstruct exactly what prompted its composition.  I am struck by how familiar it sounds, almost as if I could have written it much more recently, and that after so many years of working hard at my writing, I have at last managed to rediscover a voice which is also an earlier version of myself!

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If the world
Followed after you
Which it would
Only if you reached for it
Then I would
Lie here in jealousy
Not fright

But I was created knowing
Us both as natives
Of this earth
Even before those
That gave birth to us
Did so

And so you told me
As well
So now
I'll listen to you
And no one else
Has similar priority
In my heart

Which deforms as it informs
And makes it impossible
For us to cut the ribbon
And celebrate this new bridge
Without also stepping
Forward into the abyss