What I knew

You want to know the moment I knew?
I won’t lie, it wasn’t sudden, nor was it slow and sweet, it was a regular day.
But essentially, it changed everything-
The thing was, even without the added self-esteem issues of a crush; I always knew she was too good for me.
Too beautiful, too kind and smart, too completely wonderful. But that didn’t stop my horribly persistent desire to prove to her that I could be enough, that I could make her happy.
Without even realizing it, from the day I had begun to feel anything for her, I had started adjusting my life to this new development.
It became pretty obvious that this was no passing fancy. No walk by note of beauty.
So you ask, when exactly did I realize I was in love with her?
Not the easiest question for someone so scatter minded and forgetful, see, I don’t even remember what it was I said, but it made her smile.
And I caught myself wanting to see that smile every day for the rest of my life, I wanted to be the reason she smiled, wanted her to look at me the way I knew I looked at her.
And I guess I thought that was love.
All I can recall was nothing more than a few words and a quote I said about love and all its subjectivity.
But she smiled and it dazed me, like I had been hit in the face by enlightenment.
Could see all I had been missing out on, and now, wanted to fight for it.
I want to get her to smile as much as I possibly could.
But it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.
For me, I realized pretty early on, that she, was never going to love me, not in the way I did her.
So I told myself all the same things people tell themselves when faced with heartache and rejection.
“It would have never worked out anyway”
And I believed it, for the most part.
But found that when you love someone, it’s like a punch in the throat every time you see them carrying on without you. Like you didn’t matter to them the way they did to you.
Because you don’t.
I knew what it felt like, probably better than most.
This was not my first run-in with misery, this torment that disguised itself in a pretty case and called it something beautiful.
I was the love child of two Am nightmare's about dying alone and a heart now bone thin because of her love I'd been starved so long. 
But in the midst of all this I knew, she’d be better off never knowing.
I told myself that if she was happy; than I was happy too. And I was.
I was happy like Pluto, the farthest away from the light but grateful that I was even close enough to see her from my spot in the darkest corner of her life.
With every day I looked, I found her smiling, laughing, living her life so fully I had to wonder if to her, life was an all you can eat buffet. Laid out right in front of her, so all she had to do was reach out and choose her next meal.
And that was enough for me.
Secure in the knowledge of her content existence I found it within myself, to become the flower that grew upon the walls of the forgotten and unseen. 
Blooming only at night, when there was no one to see my crystalline petals, clear and blue.
I became a delicate misery, hoping to one day be beautiful enough for you. 
So I sit in wait, not in anger nor frustration, for I know they will get me nowhere.
Yes in my own twisted and tragic way, I was happy. 
So bashful and reserved in my feelings I could not utter more than simple words to you.
Leave it to those who feel the strongest to speak the least.
But I was not frozen, not in a moment with-out time - though when you were near it seemed to stop completely. 
In a strange burst of radical inspiration your beauty and my cowardice brought forth a tidal wave of words.
So I, dipped my sorrows gracefully, so much so, that lightning and thunder both shoved each other out of the way to watch the play I was writing with bloody ink made from my sorrow.
Kept thinking of the future and what was to come that I existed less in today and more in tomorrow. 
I knew it was obvious, wore my heart so far on my sleeve that one day I fully expected it to fall right into your hands.
Instead, there were only honest reflections, that I did not wish to brave.
I was not ready to face myself.
So I hid my mirrors and took lessons from the lover midnight, who gazed longingly at day, so far across the world, knowing that her life was joyful and that all that knew her, knew her light.
And I lived for the moments you would spare me a glance, giving me the precious memories of you that would get me through-  because you were my day.
And I never wanted to live in the solitude of the late hours with no clock to tell me when I was to be freed, trapped and melting from salt ridden acid, carving rivers down my cheeks. 
And on those muted days when you were gone, I felt your absences ringing in my ears like a horrible song.
And it would echo lika-echo lika-echo lika-mirror caught looking at itself.
I knew I couldn't hide the truth from something that sees no lies, merely swallows what it sees and reflecting that image back without any alteration.
And I was terrified of what I’d see.
So hiding became brave to me.
Became the hero I needed when escaping the cold fortress of my mind and soon,
I felt myself falling, in a more visible kind of way.
Before long I came to see that my friends, were not blind.
They saw the stars and the devotion in my eyes
My smile each time I saw her across the hall - and worse, they saw my losing control, my fall. 
Saw my ups and downs, as I skipped the living part of each day.
Instead choosing to live in such a way that made them think.
 “Maybe love is insane”
And they saw the days I sat in silence, trying with all my being to stop my own head from pounding out the sound of her name.
they saT me decay, day by day. 
Holding on to nothing but the mere thought her smile. 
But they could do nothing. Not when I was so far away.
I knew it killed them to see me slip by so quickly, like children chasing a butterfly, until it can no longer stay.
But this was not child’s play, though I had never felt so childish.
Wanting nothing more than to march over to her and declare what I felt without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity.
I wanted her heart – the most childish parts of me were willing to do anything to take it.
So I began to cannibalize my thoughts of love, into loneliness.
Believing that everyone else the in the world would have to die, just for her to love me.
I’ve grown up since then.
But think often of the times I would have broken my own heart just so I could have pieces of it I could give to her.
Now knowing, she would never take it.
And sometimes, I just want to cry.
Want to shed all this extra weight I’ve been carrying.
I’ve been storing up so many emotions that you could fill oceans made of broken locks cut off of lovers bridges.
Use my heart strings as the bolt cutters for those who had the ones they loved and took them for granted.
I want nothing more than silence - would trade my last threads of gold just to hear the same lies I’ve always been told
“Love isn’t for everybody”
As if love was a career where you made money every time you sold yourself to the will of another.
I knew, love wasn’t a special prize for those who it had been earned.
Love was a curse, that made my skin turn red and blister -  with each kiss, I was burned.
Could hear every word I wish I’d said and now can’t make up.
And if I smell like death, that's because I have a graveyard on my lips, filled with all the words that died on my tongue.
I have lived a thousand lives.
Told so many tales of bravery and overcoming your fears, that you’d think I’d have just enough courage in me to overcome myself and just say it.
But I never did.
Rejection is a fear to most but to me, it was a drug.
To me, it was the only tether I had on reality, the only thing that kept me from falling to my metaphorical doom.
Because I know, you never knew.
And I never want to be faced with the look on your face that screams.
“I’m sorry”
Because you would be.
Sorry that you never saw, sorry that you never felt my eyes on your back each time you walked away holding my heart in your hands and never even knowing it.
I slung invisible chains made from my deepest desire to be loved and expected them to meet flesh.
I can remember a time when I would have destroyed the world just to be with you.
I’ve grown up since then.
But think often of the times I didn’t know what it was I was feeling, so I slapped a label on this tsunami of emotion and called it love.
And knowing all of that, I now know this.
Even if you never looked, or spoke to me again, even if you hated me.
As long as I could see that you were happy, I would be okay.
Because “I love you” isn’t something I have to say.
I just do.
That’s when I knew I loved you.