I'll only be enough for you if
I'm enough for me;
Are you the only one who
I have a higher standard for
than myself.
(That wasn't really a question).

Take it as only the most obvious
sign of my utmost respect for you
That I reserve all of my talking to you
for writing, because it's the only
way I trust myself to
relay to you clearly--

my unedited and fallible voice and moments of being
human are not good enough for your ears and
eyes.

I must fine-tune our
casual interactions to
imperfect perfection.
And I must find your love for me

in there, somewhere.
And every time come up
empty-handed from
my gold-mining of your
unadulterated body language and
voice language and textual,
exasperated responses.

I break so easily, and again find
why I respect you and
it's because you make me believe
that you don't love me,
and that makes me love you so
unhealthily and I know

that you see through me,
just like I see through me
and it stings like a pain that tastes of
blood in my mouth because
it reminds me I'm only human,
and scratches bleed.

--And get infected if you don't
take care and you
have infected me to the point that
I'm suffocating in my own blood poison(ing)
of self-doubt and desire and
the pitiful knowledge that I may just
get over you if only
you
loved me.

Let me clarify.

Loved me the way
I would have you love
me; affectionately.
my friend, my -------

the comforting statement of "I like
who you are" I
enjoy your personality and
I take your opinion seriously because
you, like me, (and you like me)
are human.

But you love me in what
way you would have--
conditionally,
with rules that change
(only you know them anyway).

And I'm realizing with
bittersweet dawning
and incomprehension:
it's not  that I want to
be you,
but that I already am you,
except,

you're happy.

And I want the secret of
how to be you (me) and
be happy, I always
thought it was a
contradictory state until I met me (you) and saw
the version of myself that
could be at peace,
feel laughter bubble from under my
cheek bones,
and know joy as an intimate
companion.

But being you only reminds
me of that truth that I am
close but can never reach
the level of you-ness I desire.

And in my far-reaching imagination
I wonder at what
will be said about your
influence on me when
I turn out to succeed despite
my self-proclaimed shortcomings
         because deep down I know I'm good
         because of the differences between us
and my sorrow writes my movement for me

and will it ever be studied and observed
my obsession drove me to success
and drove me crazy concurrently (?)

and that craziness drove me further, still.