Just because I understand doesn't mean I agree.

I'll hide behind that smile you want to see. The one offered silent. Holding close the words wrapped choking around my heart. I'll keep the argument to myself.

I've loved you in my own way. Awkward and incomplete, stumbling through life as we've known it. I said it times over. Couldn't you hear it in my tone? Deeper meanings laced through my words. Pal, buddy, jerk, punk, Stevie. I tried to say the phrase, that one, trite and beaten down repeated, it sounded not enough.

So I said it with a look, intense direct, my soul flirting with yours, I thought you knew, saw it, saw me.

I was wrong?

I saw the spark, I felt the heat, I know I wasn't mistaken.

Still, you turned away, too afraid to let me in. To take what I offered. Funny to say those words. You; too afraid.

You're not afraid of anyone, not alley fights to aliens. Except me. Too scared to take what I wanted to give. What we could have had. Together.

Here we are at the end. We got here too fast, I missed so much along the way. We missed so much.

How did we get here?

This moment, you walking away, me standing here. Watching.

How can this be it, the end?

Not like this, don't let it end like this, just when it all falls into place. We can face this world together.

Instead, you're walking away. I'm trying to accept that fact. Trying.

You'll see my smile here at the end, soft and easy, eyes bright approval and I'll wonder how you could be fooled so easily.

How can you not see me?

Maybe you do, see right through the facade I build for your benefit. Maybe that's what hurts. Me, not being enough in the end.

I'd never stop you, never say what I'm feeling, never tell you no.

I won't throw myself at your feet, beg you to stay.

I said my piece, I spoke the words "Don't go, I need you," my voice firm, eyes locked searching for an answer. You breaking the gaze to search an empty landscape, telling me all I needed to know.

Decision made, don't argue, don't shame myself with words or knees bent or tears shed. I'll let them fall when you're gone. Back turned, face averted, where you'll never see, never know how it feels.

You'll come back to me I know. When you're done. You always do. Come back, follow, chase.

Now leave.

Go on your fling, feed the hungered pain driving us apart.

I'll wait, and smile and nod my approval, a requirement as your friend, my blessing needed to calm the churn in your gut, your body telling what we already know. Your eyes not able to hold my gaze.

You're wrong to go, wrong to leave me. But I'll stand here silent keeper of your dreams, the way you expect, being who you wanted me to be. Protecting you.

Watching you leave.

My heart, my soul, belong to you, I can't stop that, can't undo what grew that first day I laid eyes on you. Stronger now than ever, not likely to change even through this. I'll be standing here waiting. Heart still beating for yours, soul still pining for love missed, love lost, love not spoken or requited.

I'll be here when you come back to me. Dutiful and serene when you find your way to look at me.

I'll be who you need me to be, who I've always been. In love with you.

Keep my tears hidden from your view.

My breath is your breath, then, now and forever. Inseparable.

My pain subverted into the blessing you need to soothe your seeds of guilt.