The Almost That Was You
You fear the dawn may steal the stars away,
So we keep calling dusk our place to stay.
But what if love were not the end of us,
But just a door we never learned to trust?
I ask no summer that outlives the rain,
Nor love untouched by distance, doubt, or pain.
I only wish, when skies turn grey and blue,
You would still choose my hand as I choose you.
For you became the shore my thoughts return,
The quiet flame for which my winters burn.
I never asked my heart to learn your name,
Yet every road leads back to you the same.
I cannot make the moon look back at night,
Nor teach the stars to change their course of light.
But how can I pretend this soul is free,
When every silent part of it seeks thee?
Perhaps you fear that love will make us strangers,
Unaware that silence, too, holds hidden dangers.
Perhaps we guard so much what we have grown,
We lose the chance to see what could be our own.
I do not fear the storms that time may send,
For even broken branches bloom again.
I fear the years will quietly slip through,
And leave me with the ghost of me and you.
Yet love is not a thing that can be planned,
Nor can I make you reach for my waiting hand.
I may build a thousand futures in my mind,
While you see only friendship, gentle and kind.
And if your heart should never answer mine,
I shall not curse the stars, nor call them unkind.
For some flowers bloom where no one stops to see,
And some hearts love what they can never keep.
So let the future keep its secrets still;
I ask no vow, no promise, and no will.
Perhaps I am the only one who dreams of me and you,
And perhaps my greatest love will be the one you never knew.