By Word Wench
Date: 9 January 2000

Denying You

Four years of not being able to read those eyes---
knowing there was a question in your look,
but never suspecting
what was happening behind them.
How was I to know 
that there was a ricochet from my heart,
an echo from you
that I wasn't hearing?

I can't blame you for your silence,
not when I did not speak either
of the high color
that caught me 
when I looked too long at you.
Not when I never mentioned
the conflict or confusion
I felt when we laughed together
like old lovers who parted fondly.

I thought it was me being stupid.
Daydreams. Fantasy. Folderol.
One night, one kiss happened.
Random lust, I thought.
So what? Don't be a damned kid. Means nothing.
Until we could not meet without touching,
till your lips were something I could remember
and your kiss was as familiar
as a favorite bubblegum song.

I kept denying you,
denying to myself
this thing that grew unaided.
No sunlight,
no nurturing, 
no warm regard to nurture it.
And suddenly I am in your arms,
a wild thing who cannot speak
surging to you,
warming to your skin---
and fighting the urge 
to take to my heart's heels
before this thing
I never believed in 
bursts through
and eats me alive
just to prove how real it can be.