We've all felt unrequited love
I've just felt it more than most.

Maybe I'm guilty of loving too easily
Maybe I'm guilty of caring too much
But is there really such thing?
Can a person really be guilty of loving too easily?
Can a person really be guilty of loving too much?
Guilt implies some sort of crime, some form of offense
Who have I wronged?
Surely not myself
Surely not her
Maybe my only true guilt is in thinking that one could ever really be "guilty" of love at all
Because even in this type of love - in this unrequited love - beauty prevails
Surely there is no guilt in beauty.

I love her
She doesn't love me
I know this
But is this not still love?
Does the thought of her not still keep me up at night?
Is the thought of being with her not still the one thing that gets me out of bed every morning?
Of course it does.
Of course it is.

I love her
She doesn't love me
But that doesn't negate the beauty of love
For to love someone is like nothing else in life
The rush of adrenaline every time I see her face is above all others
The high that I feel when I think about her is like no other high
It's not about how she feels
It's about how she makes me feel
It's about the lessons that she has taught me
Lessons about selflessness
Lessons about persistence
Lessons about myself
Lessons about love.

One day the thought of her will pass
A relationship merely a fleeting thought
But a love that will last forever
Because unrequited love is a love like no other
A love that teaches what it's like to love
A love that cements the beauty of love in the imagination

Indeed, there is beauty in the unrequited
And for that, I have had one of the most beautiful lives that a man could live.

He was an exister
Was bestowed the breath of mundanity
Never questioned
His parents
His teachers
Grew up to be a lawyer
Not to bring justice
But to be a lawyer
Because he never questioned
His parents
His teachers
And then he retired
He had saved all of his earnings
Not because he needed to
But because he never questioned
His parents
His teachers
Society
Finally he had retired
At last, he could live
But before he could
He took his last breath of mundanity
He died

From the softness of her wrist
Bleeds vibrant shades of red
But all she sees is black and white
A beating heart but dead
As tears cascade across her cheek
From kaleidoscopic eyes
Feels not but the paralysis
Sees only greyer skies
So blind to her own beauty
She breathes her final breath
Gone are the watercolours
Now shadowed by her death

You ask me why we never talk anymore
It's like you've erased from your memory
The fact
That we never did
Maybe you don't remember
The days that you told me
That I was worthless
Maybe you've forgotten
That December afternoon
When you manically drove full speed
Into the car ahead of us
And cried of disappointment
When you found your family
Still breathing
Or perhaps you can't recall
The Friday night
When I told you that I wanted to take my life
And you went to the kitchen
To hand me a knife
Maybe you think
That your newfound success
Makes you a better parent
Maybe you've convinced yourself
That envelopes of money
And elaborate gifts
Will heal open wounds
And fade tattooed scars
Maybe in your mind
You've rewritten the past
But I'm stuck on a page
That I simply cannot turn

She tattoos scars
Down her arms
And up her legs
A roadmap to the bleeding heart
You'll never see
To actualize the pain
To make it seem real
She takes a blade to her wrist
And finally feels
An exhalation of sorrow
Of hopelessness and doubt
Perhaps only for a moment
But a permanent route
A roadmap of scars
Tattooed on her skin
Hieroglyphic memoirs
Of the story within

12 drafts later
And this poem is still ******* garbage
I tried to say something profound
But I had to start by Googling the definition
Plan B
Say something honest
So I wrote a verse about young love
But I have the soul of an old man
And I’ve never had a girlfriend
Dead ends
I want to write
I really do
But I’m lost for words
And the more I try to write about myself
About who I am
About what I’ve felt
About what I feel
Socrates
The only thing that I know for sure
Is that I know nothing at all
I heard someone say that once
Not sure what it meant
But surely it must fall under
“Having intellectual depth or insight”
Profound [Def. 1]. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Dictionary
**** it
I’m not a poet.

These tears of red
Stain a canvas of nothingness
An artful ode to insignificance
The works of a hemophiliac