To love
is to douse oneself
with kerosene,
and offer another
the match.

I am separated from you
by a white wall of wood
whilst you study quietly
on the opposite side.

I am separated from you
by our friendship
and my doubt.

I am separated from you
by our identities;
how I constantly battle my demons,
whilst you continuously escape from yours.

The irony is in the balance
of similarity and difference,
how you look up into the night sky
and wonder about the stars,
whilst I look down upon earth
and ponder about this world.

We have the same demons,
which I went to arms against,
but you met with pills
and the smoke of burning tobacco.

I look at you
with a sense of misplaced loss,
and another night will go by.
Tonight, I'll lay in bed wondering why
I wanted our paths to cross.

I’m significantly annoyed and at the same time resigned
at how you flit in and out of my thought-space.
How even as I try to shut you off
and out,
you never truly leave.
But instead remain hidden somewhere under the cloak
of my numerous other distractions;
away
from the spotlight that brings to the fore
things I know I am better off doing.

If only, believing by force of will
can banish you
forever.

(But I know, you’ll come back
to haunt me. Even if I think, sometimes, that
you are dead to me.)