I like you at arm’s length.
You aren’t close
but if I want, I can reach out and touch you.
I see everything I could want
that I don’t.
I see you sometimes at night,
and then I make you disappear.
I see you sometimes in daylight,
and I want you to disappear.
My illusions of you are harder to keep up
and I want to wave my hand and…poof.
You have long hair
and I don’t love you.
You go to the places I go
and I don’t love you.
You have the same ideals
I’ve tried you on
and I don’t love you.
You are a projection
and I don’t love you.
The projector
knows her hopes and dreams
and has the same for people.
Not all people.
I take my friends as they are
I take my family as they are
But that one person…
Yeah, I don’t take them lightly.
I cannot settle for anything.
My entire being is a constant storm of possibility
and
I cannot cut out parts of myself to fit into someone else.
I see you and you’re everything I think I want
that I don’t.
You don’t inspire me the way I inspire myself.
You don’t make me feel like the world is unending
like I do when I’m alone, writing, drinking coffee.
You love me
but I love myself so much more.
I love myself in a way that requires me to leave you
and never look back.
To subject myself to you would be to betray my
deepest feelings.
Stop crying.
It only reminds me that this is so much harder
for you.
Stop.
Why do you drag your words out when you speak
and why do you constantly look so sad
as if the world has conspired against you,
you sad, sad boy.
It’s not that you bring me down.
We get along well.
But I don’t enjoy your company.
I don’t wish for more of it.
I am relieved when you awkwardly walk away.
I know you want me to kiss you like I do
in friend’s bathrooms
watching myself in the mirror
and one time under that tree
that beautiful tree
when it was dark and I
could imagine you were something more than
somewhere to put my lips.
You fucking placeholder.
I curse not because you deserve harsh words
but because I want to hear them
because I enjoy strong language when I say
truthful things.
So fuck my boredom that brought you back
because I’m tired of lying to myself.
I’m only sorry that you can’t feel as little
as I do for you.
Now, don’t mistake my words –
I feel everything.
I feel so much for everything that I know
I know I feel nothing for you.
Not the right things, anyway.
The idealist in me is crying out
she is romantic and ambitious and unsatisfied
this is not what she wants
she has tried to love you
but you are a mirage
and I cannot truly touch a mirage
and a mirage can certainly never touch me.
Hannah Black 