The Exits That We Miss

I have loved many people in this life. But then there is you, with something unreadable behind your eyes, a distance, a void, a mirror which throws back echoes of me. This love is selfish, I know. I want you for me and none else, a single mutual exclusiveness that could snap my soul in two for the power it wields over me. Selfish, yes. 

I cannot have you. In the sordid, rotting core of my heart, nothing is more obvious. It is the poison that creeps through my veins and blurs my vision when I look at you. It is the tug that keeps me insane. If I could bleed it out, I could walk away, I could leave you and this selfish love in a shadow, forgotten and lost to time. 

But...

There is always a but. And this one whispers tales of the look you give me when I look the other way, that I catch the tail end of out of the corner of my eye. It's not longing, it's not love, but it is not the look you give to someone who is merely a friend and nothing more. Is it? Who knows? Only you, and you keep yourself close.

And it doesn't make any sense, this restless endeavour for a cause, a possibility, a hope. Because at the end of the day, you're going to walk away, keeping your silence and the unreadable look behind your eyes. And I'm going to be left with a selfish love and a self that feels nothing but self loathing.