by T S Campbell

Created on: November 21, 2008

I close my eyes and I see you. Not that I want to because it's painful - an exquisite pain borne of desire versus reality - but pain nonetheless. I have such deep feelings for you and yet I know they're one-sided. Not that you don't like me...oh, no, you like me as a person just fine. And therein lies the crux of the matter. I like you too. And I don't want to lose my good, sweet, kind friend...but I want so much more. More than you can or will ever give. I know you're not cruel. You probably don't even realize how I feel. And yet how could you not? I'm so obvious in what I say and how I act around you. To me it seems like my emotions are jumping up and down waving their arms and shouting "look at me" "want me" "love me"! I try to console myself with the thought that I'm lucky to have such a special friendship. You are someone whom I can and have turned to with my inmost thoughts. I trust that I can bear my soul without reproach. I'm painfully honest with you about everything - everything but how I'm really feeling about you these days. I don't dare. My friends tell me I'm a fool - not to ruin this friendship with the complications of love - be happy with the way things are.

But how do you change your feelings about someone? When I turn that thought around I don't like what it means. If you don't feel love for me, how does that change? Can I change that - do I want to? Do I want to love someone who can't or won't love me back? No. I don't want to make you love me. I want you to want me of your own volition...as deeply and completely as I want you. But wanting doesn't make it so...doesn't bring about change. And change brought about by sympathy or guilt or need, or any number of emotional manipulations brings no pleasure or satisfaction. So I suppose I have to come to grips with the thought that we'll never be more than friends and that it's okay. I need to let go. Let go or be consumed by feelings that threaten to destroy what we do have. And I couldn't bear the thought of you not being part of my life anymore. That's why I stuff these feelings into my subconscious and...

...and close my eyes. But there you are again. Once again, night after night you now invade my dreams. Strange, disconnected dreams. Dreams that when I seek out an interpretation, make me even more disheartened. Because even in my subconscious, my dreams appear to be telling me that pursuing you is a wasted effort. Great. Cruel pain even in my sleep. Is there no relief? Once in awhile I dream that we connect. That you look at me as someone to love. You kiss me but it 's always the point where I wake up, unable to recapture the dream even as I realize that a dream is all it was. No kiss, no sweet words, no loving looks. It was just a dream...and more exquisite, ongoing pain.

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