Selfish

Title image by joejoesmoe - Joe Alisa (http://joejoesmoe.deviantart.com/) To the man who has endured more than anyone should have to. I'm sorry but thank you.

I know it's selfish to want you this way; not as a lover or a brother or even as a friend, just a safety net.  There was a time, a brief fleeting moment, when it could have been different, a time when we could have been together the way you want, but that time is gone and I'm not that girl anymore. Now all this is is a safe place to curl up beside the glowing fire that is your heart for when the night gets too dark, too oppressive for me to breathe on my own and I think I'm going under. All I need from you is your love and no expectations; I know it's wrong to ask for that. Selfish.

Today I know something I didn't back then. I know that even if we had given it a chance, it would've withered and died. Our love could not have survived the tempest that was my young heart; you could not love enough for the both of us. I would have consumed your love, burnt it, blackened it, tarnished it.  It is better as a "what if" than as a reality. I was a mess of a girl trying to escape my too small cage and in my attempts I destroyed anything that was good and beautiful save your love. And now sitting in the charred remains of my past there is nothing but you. Yet you have no place in this future of mine. You must remain there in the wasteland I left behind me; waiting, loving. Until I need you.

Selfish.

Still, when I hear your voice, I don't get butterflies, I don't get the excitement that zings through my body, I just don't feel like that.  When I hear your voice I just feel comfort, I feel the way your sweatshirt smelled in high school when you wrapped it around my shoulder, I feel the taste of your skin pressed against my own, I feel my own laughter like I haven't heard it in years.  I feel the nostalgia setting in, I see our past through rose coloured glassed; it wasn't perfect then and it isn't now, but it looks that way. Though the past isn't pretty, you have endured.  While I don't love you like you want, like you deserve, you endure. You dog my every step, my every breath.  Every time I sigh another's name, I see you. I know that should I fall, you'll be there to catch me. Should I run, you'll run to meet me. I know that it is wrong to want the safety net of your love, but I can't help it.  You endure and I demand more.

Selfish.

I know you'll be there to carry me if ever life gets too heavy for me to carry alone.  I know you'll hold me when everything is gone, burnt up by my own hand, and I can turn to no one else.  You know you're my last resort, my back up plan, my safe haven, and yet you endure. You know I don't love you like you love me, yet you endure. You have carried this torch for so long that you have had to feed parts of yourself to the fire to keep it alive, yet you endure.  Scarred and battle weary, you stand firm and ask, "What else? What more do you ask of me?"  You have given me your heart, your mind, your body, even your soul and yet I demand more. I ask what you dread to give yet you surrender to me everything for nothing in return. I can't imagine what that love is like to have endured this long. To have survived so much with nothing to go on.  I know it hurts you, I know I hurt you but like a moth and a flame you allow me to singe your wings with no cries of protest. You give me all and I give you nothing.

Selfish.

Author's Note

To the man who has love me for so long with no respite or reward; who has persevered despite harsh words, long silences, and a cold heart. Though time and many miles separate us, I know I have his love and while I know it's wrong, I need it.