28. Sustenance

The fateful glimpse: your winning eyes –
a longing steals me by surprize.
And as I see you from afar,
your smile perforates my heart.
And awful pinch of jealousy
assaults upon my armoury;
but your endearing laugh erupts
and fills me once again with love.
Contriving for a glance from you,
attiring as the desperate do;
inviting conversation in
and grinning often from within –
I search, I search for your return,
but it is only I that burns.
Oblivious you stand, alone,
some perfect, unrequited stone.
I can convince myself quite well
of some odd bashfulness that dwells;
that mutely and covertly lies
eternal meaning in your sighs.
But then - abandoned and upset,
I try to foolishly forget:
your glance cannot revoke its toll,
engraved upon my injured soul.
And haunted, as I live through pain,
I – silent – trudge upon my way,
diverting my unhappy thoughts
to follies, empty and distraught;
but vain possessions cannot fill
my solitude and thwarted will.
Though as the weeks pass and the days
and hours spend themselves away,
I start to toss away the dreams,
forgetting all that could have been.
And if you one day loved me too,
would I return if it were true?
I loved you more than you could know;
to sacrifice that childish hope
would be excruciating pain;
but I would leave you all the same
and wish that you could find the one,
that you would cherish only them
as much as I have longed for you,
and grudgingly relinquished you.