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Love, for me, is something that is hard to carry alone,
It is meant to be shared.
Though, I am a hypocrite.
I am in love with someone,
Yet I refuse to share my love with the one I cultivated it for.
After longing for years,
Everything ended too fast.
Just when I thought that maybe I was ready to share my love with him,
We broke out into a fight.
A fight about our joint research project.
That’s how it started at least,
But then it grew into a nasty argument.
Words were thrown at one another,
Words with the intent of hurting the recipient.
Permanent stains formed on our once-strong bond.
I didn’t mean the words I spewed at him,
But I spoke them anyway, too clouded by emotional pain.
My heart was too broken by the way he spoke to me.
Crushed under the weight that his words possessed,
I doubled down and hurt him back.
I distanced myself from our project
And ignored him for the following few years.
I was successful,
I graduated,
Made a name for myself as a master architect,
But then it all was stripped away from me.
My magnum opus stands tall,
Admired by many.
I took on a large loan to build it,
I planned for this to be my best structure yet,
And it lived up to those expectations,
But it was costly.
It cost me everything to construct my magnum opus.
“It will be worth it,”
I told myself while I dipped into savings.
“Everything will be fine,”
I echoed when I sold off many of my possessions.
I built the most magnificent structure,
But at the cost of my own future.
Now, here I stand,
In the pouring rain,
Eyes locking with his.
He’s taller and more handsome than I remember.
What else have I forgotten about him?
That being said,
I do remember his hurtful words,
And the sting they left on my heart.
Becoming penniless wasn’t in the plan.
Becoming homeless wasn’t in the plan.
Being taken in by my ex-friend wasn’t in the plan.
My whole life has shifted,
And now I am not only in debt from chasing my dreams,
I’m in debt to him.
I want to say I hate him,
We bicker regularly,
But I can never hate him.
We haven’t talked in years,
Yet here he is,
Letting me live in his home,
Putting his roof over my head,
And covering many of my expenses.
When he looks at me,
I expect to see pity.
Instead, I see regret.
He has anything he could ever want.
A well-paying job.
A comfortable home.
Food in his pantry.
Warm running water.
A cushy life,
And now he shares it with me,
All he expects of me is to pay him rent.
I’m at rock bottom.
No money,
No food,
Nothing but the clothes on my back,
And now I’m supposed to pay him rent.
With what little money I do make from small projects,
I often find myself echoing,
“This is all I have, I’ll have the rest soon,”
But he never forces me to pay him,
Never even enforcing a due date.
Months pass and he stops asking for rent.
He simply accepts what I give him,
And when I give it to him.
I must be racking up a lot of debt.
I think about asking him,
But decide against it.
My life is now comfortable,
And I’m unsure if there’s a limit to his goodwill.
I feel as though I’ve overstayed my welcome,
But he has never indicated that I have.
Living together hasn’t been bad.
We banter often,
But it is usually all in good fun.
Sometimes he goes too far,
And sometimes I do too,
But he never threatens to throw me out.
Over time his home becomes my home too.
Our home.
No longer is it just his awful taste in decor,
But my tastes too.
He often asks for my input.
I get a say in how our home looks.
A testament to how intertwined our lives have become.
Though, on late nights,
After one drink too many,
Anxiety plagues my thoughts,
Challenging me with notions such as,
“He’ll throw you out eventually,”
Or,
“This is only temporary.”
Despite this, I’m always comforted by his actions.
The mornings that follow,
I’ll wake up to him making us breakfast,
Pouring me a cup of tea,
Looking at me with eyes that say more than he lets on.
He’s handsome.
He’s brilliant.
He’s observant.
He’s caring.
Even though we constantly butt heads,
These feelings of old have been simmering for a while now.
How much longer before it boils over?
I toss and turn at night,
These thoughts continue to linger.
It begins to hurt seeing him every day,
He’d never feel the same about me.
The only things I truly have to call my own are guilt and debt.
I doubt he would want to burden himself with my baggage.
“I should leave,”
I think to myself.
I always come full circle.
I don’t want to become a burden,
But I love it here.
There are many reasons why I don’t want to leave
Because when he looks at me,
I feel complete.
When we argue or debate over frivolous topics,
They almost always end with him giving me the smallest of smiles,
Before turning his attention back to reading his book.
He may be a stoic man,
But when I open my big fat mouth,
He always has a retort at the ready to challenge me.
I love hearing his voice.
I revel in his small, non-existent smile.
It’s a weak tug at the left corner of his mouth.
It’s his eyes squinting ever so slightly.
It’s in those deep aqua eyes,
Sparkling like there’s nowhere he’d rather be in the world,
Other than in our living room together.
Being with him is all I’ve ever wanted,
But it is also something that has always seemed impossible.
I want to be in a relationship with him.
I want his arms to wrap around and hold me tight,
So I won’t have to feel conflicted ever again.
I don’t want to be stuck in the friend zone,
But I also fear that my confession will be the nail in the coffin.
Hearing him say we’re just friends might be the day I die.
Each day brings its own set of challenges.
Trying to find clients aren’t always easy.
If I want to move out and move on someday,
Then I need money,
Which I don’t have.
To start providing more to our living situation,
I begin frequently cleaning our home.
This leads me to cooking him dinner,
Hot food is waiting for him on our table when he gets home.
I begin doing his laundry along with mine,
Folding it too.
Since I stay at home all day,
Waiting for clients to return letters,
I may as well make myself useful.
Our small friend group always meets on Fridays.
They jokingly call me his little housewife.
I normally try acting annoyed,
Brushing them off,
But I can’t help the way my heart flutters in my chest.
He makes firm eye contact with me.
Like a hawk stalking its prey,
He watches closely for my reaction to their teasing.
My skin flushes at the idea of being his significant other.
I need to be more careful.
If I’m not careful,
He’ll realize how I long for him.
Surely, that will only bring about teasing.
Which he seems to love doing.
I begin to slip up more often,
Letting myself indulge even just for a moment.
He’s been getting closer to me,
Invading my personal space,
And when he does this,
I get all hot and bothered.
He’s tempting,
Oh, so tempting.
My heart is telling me to pick the forbidden fruit,
Go for it!
But I am strong.
Turning my bashful reaction into a joke to cope.
It has been mostly working.
By laughing,
I was only hurting myself a little,
But I feel that soon,
I am going to boil over.
When that time comes,
Will I have the courage to tell him the truth,
Or will I hide behind more laughter,
And hurt myself more?