You’re a breathless wish

with every second of the freefall.

You’re a determined nod

with the drumming of my heart matching the rhythm of your steps.

You’re a lost corner

with waves crashing in your ocean eyes as I get lost in the depths.

You’re a creased receipt

with late night talks beneath stars and shopping center lights.

You’re a hard goodbye

with a mad dash home to make it before curfew, because we were in two different worlds, you and I.

And yet I would stretch the minutes to the breaking point with a soft, wistful sigh.

Whenever the chance, I walked so our shadows would touch – if our real hands couldn’t clasp then at least theirs could.

Eventually, I turned off my notifications so I wouldn’t always be searching for your name.

I endlessly subtracted our years and although I kept coming up with two, there was still no two of us, just every bit of foolish shame.

There’s too much risk in ever telling you what I’m really thinking, and even though you sculpt words into meaning I am one story you will never read to the end.

Because as I let myself slow down, as I blink away the stars from my eyes, I see more and more than I am craving love – but it’s not in you, it never was.

There is no peace in your gaze as it bores into mine.

You are the smoke my lungs were too young to mind, but my breath is now catching.

Finally catching up with my head, who always knew the truth.

But got blindly sidetracked in the mad, heart-pounding dive of youth.

 

You will never get to know just how much you scare me.

Only the night knows what’s poured into the tapping of my keys.

As once again I write to you, Unrequited.

My greatest If Only.