I’m enslaved by my unrequited love affair,
a prisoner of my own yearning,
caught in a cage where her name echoes.
Each thought of her is a bar,
each memory a chain,
and yet I hold on,
gripping the pain like it’s all I have.

Her silence is deafening,
a void that swallows my whispers.
Her glances—if they happen—
are fleeting,
like the breeze brushing past
but never lingering.
I am the shadow she doesn’t notice,
the tide that reaches
but is forever pushed back
by the moon of her fears.

She wears her worry like armour,
and I, the fool,
dream of breaking through
while knowing I am the thing
she will not reach for.
The sharp tongue of another
stands guard at her gate,
and I wonder,
would she dare unlock it
if the world allowed?

But here I am,
enslaved,
building a shrine out of longing,
kneeling at the altar of her indifference.
I love her,
and in this prison,
I will serve my sentence.