The most honest poem I've ever written; an examination of a painfully unrequited love. |
I rise with aches and pains and misgivings Another morning without you; a sad morning indeed Coffee induces my senses, but somehow you remain, Visions of you warming me as I sit in the computer's cold glow From the darkest fathoms of my mind, a voice says “Wake up”; And the duality of the meaning barely rings true Like children running playfully down an empty hall in a memory decades lost Thoughts of you dash through my mind, playfully, happily... longingly I yearn at moments for the comfort of your touch, for even the slightest sensation of your hand around mine These thoughts appear floating on a lilac breeze, signs of spring if ever seen, and yet just as suddenly, they disappear As with reluctance, the voice of my maturity says “Grow up”; And as with the signs of the season, the children grow old and whither away Now as the hours bear forth their burden, I raise and nurture the courage to call you If only so I can have the company of your voice for a moment of my day; so I might realign my spirited heart with my sober mind Yet you feel compelled to tell me of this hypothetical “someone else”, as if to keep me at arms length, a safer distance so as not to be exposed to emotions Like life undone, you quietly break my heart Thunder applauds darkly from the storm clouds on the horizon, as a voice of reason bitterly says “Give up”; For it seems all the truth in the world couldn't put me past two dimensions in your eyes Wanting greatly to play my hand, I try to translate my affection into humble words But nerves play foil to my feeble attempt; I stumble and fall, left to lie bruised and bleeding like a lovelorn child And yet, even through the pain of offense and injury, I continue to reveal what about you sets my heart ablaze And I feel terribly romantic, until your quiet sets summer fading and autumn setting on my hopes Already crushed by the fall, my sense of dignity desperately shouts “Shut up!” For one has only so much stature they can spare before they become not a man, but a child After the phone call suffers a sudden death, I'm left alone in harrowed thought Self pity overcomes me; I feel a need to remind myself of that which above all things else you lack The ability to put today's comfort on the line so that tomorrow might bear a stronger prize In life and love, heroes are not those who build the strongest fortresses, but rather those who stand bravely on the front lines My experience, small but significant, says “Wise up” For a hero is what I need, not an architect of his own inevitable loneliness But then, with remorse, feelings of self inadequacy begin to claw; my own faults rise to conscious being I am many things and none at once, but never have I been everything Would I be good enough for you if I were a little more muscular, a little more masculine, a little more athletic? I'd like to believe better of you; I pray you're more mature than to let your love lie in such heartless qualities Nonetheless, my insecurities play a scrupulously ruthless game, violently taunting me, “Shape up!” And I realize I have two choices: make myself better, or make myself miserable In passing, though, my mind wanders into the company of depression As persistent a companion as ever since you happened to my life It gnaws at my ambitions, my sensibility, my self worth and my spirit I find myself loathing who I am to the naked core As a look of pure sadness furrows my typically smooth face, my optimism weakly says “Look up” But to no avail; my needs and my reality are as vastly apart as life and death Now with that I lay my head down in night's waiting arms once again Another day without you; a sad day indeed Darkness dulls my senses, but somehow you remain Visions of you warming me as I sit in my own cold hatred Every inch of my body crawls with the painfully biting word “Fuckup” For even with the greatest of my efforts, I can't get the man I belong with to see what I thought was meant to be The night slowly draws itself on Silent spiders spin webs of imagination across the dormant fibers of my perception As I lie restless in bed, trying to coax my anxious mind toward the bounty of sleep My thoughts lie not at home right now, but rather beside you; I wonder if maybe yours lie with me too For just one second, a solitary candle flickers in my heart, the most humble flame of hope But in a moment its gone; the scent of a barely singed wick coming to my forethoughts For in an instant, a cloud of doubt, thick as night, smothers the newborn flame with discomforting ease What if you are thinking of myself and my affection, but of the latter as being an obstacle in the path of us being friends? As much as it pains me to say, my feelings of friendship and romance in concern to you are far too intertwined To remove one would be to remove the other, and as such, one will never cease to exist unless both are destroyed A painful fear strikes, in that my only chance for happiness might be for me to leave you behind and never look back A surge of emotion pulses through my body, sending chills upward along my spine; this decision which awaits is that to which I hold the greatest contempt For the man who always stood shadowed in my dreams now has a face; a beautiful one, and behind that beautiful face, a beautiful soul Your eyes the last vestige of my conscious thought, I unknowingly begin my descent into the mysterious realms of slumber Unwittingly setting foot into the grandiose theater of my vast subconscious Windows to my desire open readily; happy images are projected on the desolate screen But I, as an audience member, am oblivious to the fact that this is mere cinema I think with real thoughts, perceive with real senses, feel with real emotions I witness image transforming into art, art into language, language into experience, and suddenly I find myself in a transcendent moment where I've always yearned to be Holding you tight in my arms, as the cold winter night closes in around us, Our body heat seemingly the only thing keeping each other warm Snow falls gently behind the frost-glazed window as Christmas Eve draws to its close The most comfortable feeling, warm like apple cider, graces me with its presence Merely because, at this beautiful fracture in time, should I happen to wake I might be able to turn toward you and say the words “I love you” as you sleep The alarm clock wails I rise with aches and pains and misgivings Another morning without you; a sad morning indeed Coffee induces my senses, but somehow you remain, Visions of you warming me as I sit in the computer's cold glow From the darkest fathoms of my mind, a voice says “Wake up”; I do And suddenly I have a vision; a timeworn perspective of a novel concept I see the rocky road that lies before me, twisting and turning as it snakes its way up the impossibly steep slope Towards your affection, with the jagged rocks of rejection glistening in the moonlight so very far below Should one stumble, there's no telling how long the fall would take, only that a certainty awaited them at the bottom And yet I feel compelled to climb, the gory and inevitable plummet seeming far less painful than being apart from the destination; you I play pawn to my own imagination, as shards of my former existence rain down around me Remnants of the time when I could be content by way of my own devices My thoughts bleed forth like a river, overflowing its banks and spilling its way through the entirety of my conception And every flooded bush, every thought-covered rock, every torrent-engulfed tree, sings forth to me Of the greatest love story that's never been written Might never come to pass And could certainly not be predicted My feelings for you came from the most unexpected of places, and as such It seems fitting to me that there they shall return If only to lie dormant, forgotten, unrequited A reminder of the piece of me that dies every time you turn away - Nick |