I am trying to hold myself back from loving you.

So far I have seemed to succeed
Except for the fact that I think of you everyday.

But then there you were when I wasn’t thinking about you.

A proximity that occurs due only to chance
Because we live in a small world.

Some call that fate.

But fate cannot change the entanglements
of politics and friendship.

I have alliances that cannot be broken just as much as you.

Neither of us wants complication,
Just a quid pro quo relationship that can end at our will.

It will end at your will.

I, however, am left strangling the misconception
That friendship is a precursor to love.