How strange
For the chemical composition of my brain to be so dependent upon the countenance of someone who doesn’t even know my name
My name is my identity
I am certain I know the ingredients of your soul, and yet to not know my name is almost as if you do not acknowledge the existence of mine
A stranger who can bypass every measure engineered to keep me stable
I feel like an imbecile, giving a thief the key to break into my house
Except it is self-inflicted
You are not a thief —you never asked to be let in
So why am I falling apart?

It’s a game
A cruel game, really
A race to indifference, except no one is running beside me
And I am above ground
If I stopped I would certainly fall to my death
I wish to love you out loud, with all of my being
But that’s weird

So instead I will look for you in every room I enter
I will wait to see you knit your brows in that adorable way you do when someone says something that confounds you
I will hold my breath until you do something that reminds me why I fell in love with you
And my love will crescendo with every endearing action
I will timetable my stares
And pray you are doing the same

But you are not.

I see you and my longing deepens
I feel my love pour into me like crimson out of a crystal decanter
Meanwhile, is your love diminishing?
When you smile, I yearn for your soul
When I smile, do you wish I were dead?
Or worse…do you feel nothing at all?
I want to trace the map of your idiosyncrasies
‘X’ marks the spot is my love to the power of infinity

I crave the intimacy of understanding on a cellular level
I want to lay on your chest and feel your heartbeat and know that you are real and I am real and my love was justified all along
Even when I had no clear indication you were anything but a projection of my overzealous mind

I think you looked at me
But it was in a public setting so I cannot be certain
In a room of so many souls, how can I be sure it is mine you are speculating about
What do I do with the earth-shattering possibility that you are not?
Moments like these are worse than rejection because they give me hope
I find I must balance the hope blossoming in my chest in one hand with the weight of reality in the other
But my heart is in my hand
So one of them has to give

If only you’d take it from me

I am ashamed
Do others feel things so deeply
Or is it just I,
meandering with this bottomless well of love in me
With no one to draw from me and lighten my load
Sometimes my love takes a hold of me and wraps around me so tightly, my vision stars
Have you noticed?
I feel it leaking out of my orifices

Ultimately, I will wait
Perched at the rock within my mind
And when you walk in and illuminate everyone and everything
I will hope your light reaches me

How sad
The pain of yearning for a light that will never shine on me