Unrequited Love

I love you, you know

Only you don't

I spy on you through the curtains

Of your window across the street

I see your biceps flexing, your pecs firm

And I imagine you placing your arms

Around my shoulders to comfort me

Tiny me snug in your embrace

But it's more than that, you know

Only you don't

I see a kindness in the crinkle of your eyes

The pursing of your sensitive lips

That would feel like silk against mine

As I threw my passion for you

Into that first kiss

And the next

So you would understand how I feel

I've written you dozens of letters proposing

That we meet and "try each other on for size,"

Only I've never sent them

If I got caught, they'd lock me up for being a pervert

And I'd be stigmatized forever

And you'd be guilty by association,

Something I would never want for you

So I simply watch as you playfully snuggle on the couch

With your husband

Joke and jest and act as normal as every gay man is

And I am jealous

Jealous because I can't love a woman

The way you love a man

And it hurts

Hurts until my insides twist into knots

And my breathing comes in shallow gasps

I feel normal, but I know if I came out

No one would believe me

I am tainted goods

So I hide inside my feelings

Put on the fake smile every day

And bury my true self

Where no one else can reach

Hoping love will still find a way to comfort me

Despite the abomination

Society says I am