Tell Me I'm Dreaming // poetry

27. in another world

Your sunny smile, so soft, so sweet,
So tender, the way you look at me
so kindly, that a fire rekindles in my soul.
And I unwittingly smile back.

Your lithe, long figure, lengthy legs,
your proportions so peculiar that I,
five-foot-three, am still taller than you, five-foot-nine?
when we're sitting down.

Your passion, persistence, and insistence
that you pursue a profession profiting in more than money,
and what a joy finding out that you want to teach,
and how sad, finding out your altruism sprang from low self-worth.

Your honesty, the way you bare your soul,
rip open your wounds and share your scars,
the way you bleed before me—when I've known you
not even a year.

Your courage, what it must have taken
to say, "I'm a liar," and confess your crimes,
how you're messed up, screwed up, broken inside
and I felt—

pity.
What a pity it is, because
these are the things
the reasons why
the rationale
the voices in my mind
and the motive, the impulse, that spurs me to tell you that
I—

but I can't.
I'm not ready, and you're not the one.
Oh, and I feel livid that that's the case
but this isn't the time or the place.

But I'll be your friend
for as long as you'll have me,
and I'll listen to
all of your stories
and smile, wondering, in my head,
if our story could've gone a little bit differently
in another world.

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Written for WattpadPoetry's "February is Subtle" contest.
Also, oh man, I have not written anything on Wattpad in so long, but it feels good to be back.

- Paula