perhaps it is true what they say,
that it’s better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.
but the cruelest trick
is never to have loved what it is you lost,
but to hold it close to your heart
in a way that whispers of love.

but time is cruel and works faster than even the sharpest thinkers
when love is involved.
love, lust, like, loath – i never liked the assumptions of poetry.
in the end they’re all the same,
in the end they all end with disdain,
because even if i loved you and you loved me,
we would both grow old and only one would see
how time is cruel and works faster than our eyes
and faster than our hearts.

say my four-letter word is Like and not yet Love,
that the distance is two mere letters
so easily swayed by your silver tongue.
if i haven’t the courage to bring I to U
and let U change to O,
then i will rely on the second closest word:
a word i know to be Luck.

Luck, my fickle friend;
they draw you in and whisper that you are safe,
leaving you at the hands of Time
and making you tick like a clock that unwinds.
but who spoke ill of my best friend Luck,
the one who watches and holds me up?
because Luck is always kind of kind,
as long as you work to make them chime.

and so, with the face of a shattered clock,
i tried to convince myself that i'd had enough
because Like and Love may have two letters between,
but U and I will always be separated by S and H and E.

so i left my Luck and changed from Like to Lust,
decided it was better if my heart took a break,
because nothing in your smile could compare to the stars,
and nothing in your touch could only be ours.
but blood stays warm and eyes still look,
so how could i rob them of the one thing you never took
from me, my lust, my like, and luck?

and yet, four letters still remain,
all the unspoken thoughts we never say –
but the things that we do,
well, they will always remain untrue.

there is still a word where I remain,
its venom laced into every refrain,
because that is what i am forced to do:
refrain, restrain, and never convey
these thoughts i wish you could hear.

so i smile at her and i smile at you,
and as my teeth dig into my lip
these four letters drip down my chin.
they're bitter and stale, but it’s a familiar taste.
there is no U, no S, no H nor E.
I is left with only L and A and R.