Friendzoning Went Well

When we were younger, I liked you.
The kind that friends shouldn’t
    feel for friends.
I always tried to cheer you up.
And for a long while:
    a sem
       a year
          or two
The gazebo was my favorite haunt
    because it was yours.

I knew about your sadness
    though not its source.
I saw the gravity with which you walked
    and I wanted to save you;
    but I knew I could not, should not.
We all rise from each of our own abyss
    and in time, you did.

I’d always scour the boards,
    waiting to see something
        wrought by your hand,
        a child of your mind.

Proof that the myths of creation are true:
    A figure can be molded out of darkness,
    A ray of light can stream from a void,
    That something can spring out of nothing.

I’ve always wanted, hoped
    to tell you
In whatever way or method
    or scheme.
But you needed a friend
More than you needed—well—
    whatever I was doomed to be labelled
    if I spoke, if I took a step,
    if you found out.

So I shut my mouth
    and widened my smile,
    and I slowly let it go.

And now that we are older
I see that I chose well
    in keeping quiet,
    in letting attraction ebb and vanish.

I found a greater love,
You found yourself.

Have no fear in losing a friend, I am still.
Or feel awkward in my presence—
    there is nothing left of that longing
Or think I seek reciprocation—
    I need no such thing.

I write this not with the expectation of an answer,
    nor the fulfillment of a whim,
    nor in preparation for death inevitable,
    nor for sport.

But for the simplest reason there is under our sky—

I thought of you, and I wrote.

by: H. Taotjo, in yet another bout of insomnia. March 25 2014