Only friendship.
You made yourself clear - clear as glass - that it could never be more.
But as I too am glass, a small shard of me broke off and shattered.
And why did it ignite my spirit to be in your presence, to be enfolded in your warmth
Why, why did it set my heart aflame, burn me with such flammable, incendiary envy
To see you lust after another, to want far beyond friendship with them
Why did that melt me
I was already committed to another, no matter if it was a dry, barren whisper of once-existing love or a forest of endless rain
It was commitment
Yet in spite of this, I continued to melt
Melting, right down to my core
Where I am just sand
Vulnerable, exposed, walked-on sand that could, at any second, be picked up by the wind and taken to another pit of uncertainty
But you
You dropped the empty attempts
And you began giving me your time
You showed me the naïveté that I am, and you took my hand and led me through a dark room
It was cold, and I was afraid
And you could not tell me that "everything would be okay"
Because this was real, unfiltered life you were motioning to before me
And though it was not a fully comfortable realisation,
The cold slowly thawed, from the outsides into my core, my sand
And as I thawed, as you too made yourself more vulnerable,
I at last began to take shape
Perhaps I have a calling
Beyond this fragile shell I consistently run back to for shelter, return to when it yearns back for my unearthed body to be protected again
But I knew better,
That when you molt from your armour,
Its purpose has been used up, and it is now just an empty shell, and it is time for that shell to be discarded.
And now, in my infantile flesh,
I trust that you can be my protector until my new shell can learn to harden
I am still unsure today if it has solidified,
Because I am focused elsewhere
Focused on you
My heart's every beat feels light at the remembrance of you
My mind's every thought a whirlwind
From the dissonance of reaching for you and being tempted to go back under the comfort of my old shell, from the knowledge that these two cannot coexist
But my soul, my soul is nearing soundness at last
Because with you here, I feel that my honest identity is at last coming to life
With you here,
Your breezes blow, but I do not fear that I will be carried away
Your shore arrives, but I do not fear that I am going to wash away
Though it was you who dared grind me down to my initial state of innocent sand,
You have sculpted me, even with the uselessness that I've felt I am
Shown me my potential
And made me a flourishing seashore.