I want you
But you're not mine to want.
I miss you
But you're not mine to miss.
I love you
But you're not mine to love.
Will you ever be mine?
Do you crave me the way I crave you?

I ripped my skin open
Spilling my secrets and blood on the floor.
But it made you uncomfortable
I was too open
Too raw
Too much.
I apologized
As I covered up my insides
And sewed myself back together.

I’ve always been told to be myself
To be honest
To be real.
But no one seems to be ready for the real me.
I open my body up and my secrets come pouring out like bats from a cave racing towards the light.
But they turn to dust as you look upon them.
You tell me,
That was too much,
Hold back
You’re being too open
Too honest
Too raw.
You’re scaring people away.
They don’t like you being too vulnerable.
It’s weird, and uncomfortable.
But how can I be both?
How can I be both open and closed?
Enough, but not too much?
I only know love on one setting.
I don’t do things halfway.

One day you looked at me with a gentleness and intensity that I had never seen before.
Your dark brown eyes pierced my soul and warmed my heart.
That's when I knew. As soon as you looked at me. I knew. I was *******.
No matter which way it played out. I was *******.
Because you were just too good to be true.
And my track record shows that someone like you would be the one to hurt me.
I should know that someone like you wouldn't fall for me.  
You were just right. But at the same time you were all wrong.
Maybe it was me or maybe it was you maybe it was the timing or a combination of the two.
But all I know is you shouldn't have looked at me like that if you didn't intend to stay.

You looked at me with the softest eyes I'd ever seen.
But while I was distracted you fell for someone else.  
And now that you're gone I'm still hung up on you.
After all of this, I still can't get you off my mind.
Won't you go bother someone else's thoughts?

You were so unexpected.
We met and before I knew it you had wedged yourself in my heart.
But you don't care for me.
You never did.
But I'm stuck on you.
And I don't know if I'll ever recover.

this poem
is not about you

even though
your spirit is in every word
your voice sounds strong
in the halls of my mind
telling me things
I am now sure
I want to know

this poem is
about me

trying to understand
you