Longing.

Feelings forbidden by circumstance self-inflicted.

Each encounter an act of denial;

Every meeting a study of self control.

Stolen glances, touches, and innuendo

Juxtaposed against lost opportunities.

Knowledge of what could have been,

Should have been,

Went unspoken

Yet mutually understood.

 

Hope.

One man’s failures,

An ending for sure,

But also a potential beginning for another.

Dismissing doubt,

Pushing aside fear and hesitation,

His soul is lain bare.

So many words,

So many emotions,

All creating a cacophony of thought

Making expression

All but futile.

 

Proposal.

Stammering, stumbling for syntax,

He searches for the words

To say that which he yearned to say

Every time their eyes met.

While words fight to fail him,

His intent is conveyed nonetheless,

At last.

At last, he was able

To say it aloud,

To scream it at the top of his lungs,

And make his feelings known.

No longer in secret.

No longer hidden by facade.

 

Flight.

Her first instinct is to run

As if fleeing the scene of a crime.

And a crime it may be,

For a dream lay dying

As she walked away.

A dream long held

In a heart now broken.

This outcome,

Though known to have been possible,

Was never imagined to unfold this way.

Not like this.

Watching her turn and leave,

All but dismissing his existence

As he petitioned his case.

With ears gone deaf,

Her words of rejection

Came far too easily,

like weapons kept at the ready.

And all he could do

Was watch her drive away.

 

Acceptance.

Across the dozens of years he had known her,

Hope had remained

Buried deep within

That they would,

Someday,

Somehow,

Be together.

Now, for the first time,

He was face to face

With the knowledge

They will never be.