I don’t want to utter these words

So cliché

So lost in the passage-hood of infatuation

But

I can’t help it

They stumble out before I can stop them

“Why didn’t you call?”

I am a romantic realist

While I believe in love

I do not believe it happens at a glance.

It takes time and friendship

for that sort of thing to grow.

And while I believe in importance,

And I do not believe in the absolution of

“the one”

too many

verbose paper backs

bland Hollywood screens

have solidified its silliness

And I am sorry

but

One

long

hurtful

moment.

And I can no longer understand the longing for it

never mind that it exists

So I will not pretend what happened when I saw you

I just wish you weren’t what I had imagined things to be

(and everything he wasn’t)

I wish you hadn’t danced with me

Hadn’t touched my hair

Hadn’t looked vaguely like a pirate

Hadn’t been enough to make me feel

(I wish I didn’t mean to)

loved

but far enough away to make me feel

(I wish I didn’t have to)

safe

Or get that awkward look when you danced with a gay man,

A combination of confidence and slight insecurity

enough to banish the brand of homophobe

(half my friends are gay after all)

but enough to reassure me

(I won’t catch you in bed with any of them)

I’ve never felt that heat

That confidence

That kind of unjustified awe

That comes from more than a pretty face

and charm

and smiles

(though it doesn’t hurt)

But I wish you had known

I am so very young in love.

Weeks

Passed

My friends told me wait

He’ll call.

Utilizing the modern 21st century

I found you

Messaged you

And then ran into you

For a while I believed in fate.

You gave me flips flops

the kind in your stomach

(after all my feet didn’t touch the ground)

Made me sound like a twelve year old girl

end my exclamation points in pink hearts

An insult to my college ruled notebook.

And my infatuation with blue left.

It is now dark molasses that makes my heart skip.

Reminders of you.

I can see your face plastered on a technicolored screen

Wondering

Should I remind him?

In suicide.

Waiting.

The knowledge of

“ladies man”

and

“first year hook ups”

does little to quell

that which was not so much unrequited

as forgotten.

And now you are but a dull ache

And a wounded sense of circumstantial glory.

An even more intense sense of humiliation.

For I am a romantic realist.

I do not believe in love at first sight.

I will ignore that

I have met you twice.