Forgive me for daring to start this,
to even think this.
Forgive me for giving in to this,
to begin to doubt this.
Forgive me for being so alone,
to be able to still love you.

People drift
and lives change,
but you don't know
how much you changed me.
You'll never know
how much you moved me.
You don't want to know
that when you were there
I smiled more than ever before,
and when you were gone
I gave into the old, bitter tears.

We're born alone
except in rare cases,
so it must be in human nature
to yearn the loneliness to end,
but it's also in some of us
to push the people away
that remind us in the slightest
of that lonely beginning.
We're born alone
except in rare cases,
and I saw the yearning in your eyes.
You'll never know
how far I saw into those
deep green eyes.

There's a consumption
in me that eats things up slowly.
You didn't know
why I was so far away,
and you'll never know
why I came so close.
You didn't know
I was crying on the phone
and you'll never know
that I knew then that it had to end.

I begged you not to go.
It was a weekend trip,
a simple little band trip,
it was so small,
but I couldn't bear to let you leave.
You didn't know how much it hurt
to hold onto you for the first time,
and how much I didn't want to let you go.
You'll never know how much it hurt
to hug you that last time
and feel that you were the one
who didn't want to let go.
You'll never know
I waited and waited for you to call
and I cried at your pictures,
those beautiful pictures,
that caught moments and feelings
of your innate greenness,
your soft happiness,
and your consuming sadness.

You didn't know
I was crying on the phone.
You'll never know
that I knew in that moment,
in that moment,
weeks after you burned your own image,
weeks after you signed your soul to me,
weeks after we made a pact in blood
I knew in that moment
when you were shamed
by your one fault
(and I saw through that
your shame in your other faults),
I knew in that one moment
that it could only fall farther from there.

You didn't know I skipped bio for you
and waited and waited for you to come.
You didn't know
we'd go get ice cream
and talk for hours
and I'd confess my love
and things would be perfect.
You'll never know
how badly it shattered me
that when you came late
you were barely even there.
You'll never know
how hard I was sobbing
up on that hill alone,
when you were too afraid to approach.
You'll never know
the 55 shattered dreams
and saviors
and beautiful little silver discs
were for you,
for the fact that I was grounded for a month,
a month away from you coming home with me
every other night.
A month away from us laughing psychotically
as we squished computer bunnies,
and sat quietly
with haunted eyes
listening to True Goth.

I'll never know
why you didn't reach out;
maybe it was against your pride.
I know if I could have,
I would have never
left your side.
I would have been with you
and stayed with you
and fought your demons
at your side.
I would have loved you
and kept you as safe as I could,
to stay forever
by your side.
If I had had that month
of after-schools,
I would have used them
to heal you.
Instead, I lost you.

You don't know
how much I've cried
because you swore on your life you'd call.
You haven't.
You won't.
You don't know
I almost burned my room down
(and the house with it)
because everywhere I turn,
there's a piece of you.
The flag for The Wall,
which you reverently hung in your room
with the two posters,
even though there wasn’t room
and you didn't own the CD.
The Sobé caps,
especially Mr. Green,
that you had glued to your locker.
The home-made-store-bought scrapbook
with our rants
and our promise:
You die, I die, she dies, he dies.

If I die, will you die?

There's the choker
that said 'harsh'
that I never would have worn
if you didn't doubt I'd wear it.
There are the countless pictures,
the True Goth CDs,
the safety pins
and the friendship-knife,
the first story I shared with you;
the first time
you said you were scared that we were so alike.
The silence
....
all the silence.
You don't know how much silence kills me,
and you won't know
no matter how often I tell you.
Silence is the enemy.
A week of silence
brought my best friend's death.
A week of silence
brought your removal.
In a week of silence
you found the satisfying shallowness
of the freak-jock world.

You didn't know
I loved you before your second girlfriend.
You probably still don't know
how I feel.
I've told you;
indirectly,
but you're smart.
And you're hurt.
You don't know
how much I want to take that away.
You don't know
that I wouldn't put my sorrow into your world,
because I was never as happy
as in those shadowed midnight moments
when your green eyes
and green hair flashed in the moonlight,
and you screamed like a god
and thrust the mighty sword
(umbrella)
into the ground
(denting the ground)
and posed like some sort of
new-century Knight;
too distinguished to be a mercenary,
and too alive to be a king.
You didn't know
how much I wanted to kiss you
when I studied the line of your cheek,
driving myself crazy
trying to think what animal you reminded me of.
You didn't know
I held my hand back
so I wouldn't trace that fragile line
with my long nails,
so I wouldn't trace the line of your lips
and fall to my knees
begging you to understand.
Instead,
we talked about cloaks and swords
and the fact that you were a weasel
and he was a wolf.

But you're the wolf.
You're the majestic creature standing strong and alone in the moonlight,
a pack animal too afraid
to stay with the others
but too proud to howl your grief;
instead, it's in defiance.
Defiance against your pain
and the injustice,
the fact that you had to remake yourself,
that you couldn't be who you were
in the redneck, back-town North.
I was born in the same North,
and you don't know that I'm convinced
that's what gave us both the wolf's blood;
to escape that place
and become unique,
become something that could never survive
with the others of the North;
too strong to fit the closed-minded pack,
and too scared to be alone.

You don't know
how much I prayed you would cry
when you told me you couldn't escape the past;
instead, I got angry
because you thought I couldn't understand.
You have your mistakes
and I have mine.
You have your tragedies
and I have mine.
We have both bled to escape our pains,
and you didn't know
the only reason I became friends with you
was because you showed me
the safety pin trick;
the one where you pushed it into your arm
and took it out without bleeding.
The one where you put it in again,
twisted it around,
then got blood all over the floor.
You don't know
I still use that safety pin
to hold the flap on the shoulder of my trench coat.

You didn't know
I started taking pills
so I could be happy for you.
I wanted to be the strong one.
I could have been the strong one.
I wanted to see you cry
and feel that your desperate embrace
was getting something from me.
Your hugs were so hungry.
You would hold on forever,
and it was like I was losing myself in peace.
We gained so much from each other.
I don't know;
we could've gained more.

You don't know
I still wait for you to call.
You don't know
I'd give anything for you to call.
You don't know
it's taken me years to build up to this needing
with anyone else,
and it took me months
to feel it for you.
You don't even know what I feel.
You'll never know what I feel.
You'll never heal.

I don't know
why I couldn't be part of your world.
I don't know
why I got pushed away
when you needed the most.
I don't know
why the second I was ready
to take control,
you had run for safety.
You'd run for cover.
I don't know
why I thought you were
an ugly little new-prep-friend
of the too-bubbly-girl,
then you became the most beautiful thing
I'd ever seen, ever watched.

I started taking pictures
because I wanted to take them of you.
I catch perfect moments on the camera
if you're standing there.
Perfect growling-smiles,
perfect forced egotism,
perfect stillness
and half-thoughts.
You don't know
you're so beautiful
it's made me cry.
You don't know
that the last two batches of pics
I brought home reduced me to a quivering heap,
curled up in the corner of my bed,
clawing at the bunched up quilts
to try to get away from what I was feeling inside me,
because no one should be worth it.
No love should be worth this.

You might know
I want to hate you.
You might know
I can't call you,
that if I did and heard your voice,
I would burst into tears
and hang up again.
You don't know
I've never felt so weak
and defeated.
You don't know
how much you've destroyed me.

You don't know
how much you're
everything I ever dreamed,
through your problems
more than anything.
I could never go for
a perfect guy.
I need the desperation,
I need the anger,
I need the understanding more than anything,
and yours was so intense
that it scared you away.
I need to share music,
to share the mystery
of things I believe in
that can't be real.
You didn't know
when I watched you practicing
letting a weight spin without your conscious thought,
I almost collapsed and swore my eternal love.
You didn't know
that when you said you'd asked it
if any of your friends would kill themselves,
I wanted to tell you
'never'
so long as you stayed in that half sad,
half amused moment forever.

I want to be standing
in the cool March night,
with my heavy trench coat billowing out
behind me like I'd walked straight into a movie,
with you laughing and saying
that it really CAN be done.
I want to grab your hand
before you put the lighter to your picture,
before you burn your past
and let it all happen.
I want to be sitting in that McDonald's,
surrounded by people
that I didn't know were there.

I never wanted to lose
what I knew I'd never have.
You don't know
how much you hurt me.
You'll never know
how much you hurt me,
because I just can't tell you.
I want to burn everything you ever touched,
but I'm so afraid
to lose the scent of you
that still clings to two of my shirts,
after so many months
and so many times through the washing machine.
You don't know
my suspended in dusk shirt
is now my favorite
because it looked so perfect on you,
and it seems to forever
smell like you.

The last time I saw you
(the last time I'll ever?)
you told me
my boyfriend needed to gain more confidence.
You don't know
I'm the one who needs to do that.
I need to go back in time,
and take advantage of when
I was studying your fragile cheekbone;
when I circled you endlessly in a swivel chair;
when I let your pendant move around your aura
while you were lying on the ground
and I was kneeling beside you,
holding the black string above your face;
when I grabbed that same dragon pendant
at the bus stop
and I pulled you so close,
then only hugged you fiercely
and had to let go.
I should have taken the moments
to be daring and kiss you,
to tell you without words,
but I never could.
Your green eyes haunt me.
They've dulled since then,
becoming gray,
reflecting the fading blue of your hair,
but I'll always see them as green.
I'll always see you as green.

Maybe I was right in calling you God,
because you gave me faith in life,
for at least a little bit.
I'll move on,
and I have my new happy thoughts,
but I'll always be haunted
and it will be years
before I've cried myself out over you.
And you'll never know.