Prompt #2: The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back? ​ http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

​     "No."
     No matter how much I drink or sleep or attempt to bleed away the misery, I cannot get that horrendous word of my head... "No." I just cannot believe somebody so angelic could cut so deeply into my soul and rip my heart to shreds-- but she has. 
    I understand that I cannot make somebody love me, I know that and have accepted that, but no level of acceptance or understanding can stop my heart from bleeding and my soul from crying out. I have love letters and sappy poems filling up every trash bin in the house and all over the street... I try to write about anything other than her, but I cannot even get my mind to think of anything that isn't her... My heart beats the syllables of her name. She is the main character of my dreams-- though not even in my dreams does she answer "yes" to that doomed question. 
      Maybe I misread the signs, or maybe the signs were only a manifestation of my own foolish mind... thinking it can create something that simply does not exist.... Oh, how I wish your love for me did exist, but it doesn't. I tell my friends that I'm fine, but that isn't the first time that I have lied. I tell them that I haven't thought of you in weeks; oh, how I wish that were true. My mind hasn't thought of anything besides you since... I cannot even remember a time... Ever since you entered my life, all of those years ago, my mind has been filled with thoughts of you and my heart has been filled with love for you and my future has been filled with me and you... but now I must change my future plans... Oh, how I wish your love for me did exist.
​     

Your green eyes were my Northern Star,
But, with you leaving my side, that guide has faded away--
And now I wonder if I will ever again find my way home.
Maybe you and I will be together someday...
But even my convoluted mind can't seem to find a way
That you and I become intertwined in the end.
I guess this is our tragic end--
"Do you love me?"
"No."

    The sun shines sparingly through the curtains and onto my bed. I close my eyes tightly in hopes of slipping back to sleep and into another dream, as those are the only times you and I seem to meet-- but sleep has once more evaded me. I hear the birds chirping and singing along to some happy tune that seems so foreign to me nowadays. I sit in the darkness for possibly a moment too long, though even with the open curtains and the sun taking over my bedroom the darkness is nearly impossible to avoid as it has so long ago occupied my entire mind.
     I sit at my bedside and watch the cars drive by below. I see couples walking around, hand-in-hand, on their way to coffee or breakfast or wherever it is that couples go, I no longer would know. The news plays softly in the background, the weatherman says tonight should be another cold one, he suggests snuggling up with a loved one over a cup of hot chocolate-- I mute his voice. 
      The wind softly picks up trash from the gutter and floats it into the air, it dances around-- showing that even garbage is able to find joy in this gruesome world. I see that most of the pedestrians are covered up with light sweaters and shielded with sunglasses of some sort. I walk into my closest and peek around for a sweater that doesn't remind me of you or isn't covered in your scent, the mission is nearly impossible, but eventually I find one hidden in the back. I grab it, wipe off the years of dust, and try to cover up my disgust for its hideous orange shading and throw it on over a dirty shirt. My only pair of glasses were purchased by you, so I decide that I would rather the sun attempt to penetrate my vision, than have a reminder of you so close.
       With no plans for the day, I walk aimlessly through the streets. I feel the breeze softly against my cheeks; the sun's rays, appearing through building gaps and alleyways, warm me up as the wind attempts to cool me down. It is a beautiful day, even I can admit that. The birds seem to fly only above my head as they continue to sing joyfully; the trash dances around by my side and for a moment... everything seems okay. 

     I wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you and write about you and dream about you and pray about you... I find it unlikely, I guess that's why we are no longer we, but instead are you and I-- I am broken, but you seem to be just fine. The thing that gets the deepest beneath my skin is the lack of closure that we provided to one another. It was as if we were both afraid to speak the truths of our hearts-- my truth that I loved you and your truth that you never could. Our truths never did seem to align...
     Nowadays my pens seem to instinctually write your name. Every night I re-watch a version of my default dream-- where you and I attempt love once more, but it inevitably fails... That is how broken our love truly is, it cannot even survive in a world that exists purely in my mind. 
      I'm not sure why I continue to write about you or paint pictures of your green eyes and post them all over the walls of my brain-- it's obsessive, I know, but I believe it is so much more. I am afraid to move on or incapable of moving on... all I know is that I do not want to move on... Though I know I must move on...  Why have we forced ourselves into this disgusting corner that is exhaustive with cobwebs all telling me to move on. Even the demons of my soul have teamed up with the few surviving angels in attempts to convince me to move on... But still I refuse to move on. 
       I will continue to write about you until the world is vacant of empty space and all the pens have run dry... But even then I will find a mountaintop to scream my confessions out. It's the only way that I know how to live... Even if I cannot truly have you, I will have you in my dreams. I will have you in my prayers. I will have you in the words that I write. Even if the only words directed at me are "move on," my words in response will always pertain to you... I refuse to move on.

      I dreamt about you again last night, as I have done every night since we last spoke. It was just you and I alone in a room, but we weren't speaking or holding onto one another, rather we were just sitting... and being together. I guess that's all I really want in this moment-- to be with you. I don't need a "Hello" or a kiss, I just need your eyes and smile in the same room that I sit. I want our lungs to breathe in the same air and our exhales to intertwine. I want you, here. I no longer want to be afraid to wake up in the morning-- knowing that is when I must say goodbye until the next night where I can sleep and dream of you and I once more. All I want is you and I once more, but it seems that you and I are no more-- unless we're living in my dreams, where you once more are mi amour. 

     "You love me, don't you?"
     "You know that I do."
     "Then why isn't that enough?"
     "It is enough."
     "It clearly is not."
     It is silent as I formulate my response. "It's not... a lack of love. It's just... I have to do this. You get that, don't you?"
     "I just don't see why it's either that or me."
     "You know that I want you both."
     "Then have us both."
     "I can't! You know that I can't... Fuck!"
     "What is it?"
     "I love you... so fucking much," a single tears rolls down my left cheek, "I just... I hate that I can't have you."
     "You can."
     "It's not written in the stars."
     "Then ignore the stars."
     "I can't."
     "You can."
     "I can't... I need to go."
     "You need to stay."
     I look silently into her eyes-- they are so beautiful. Her soul radiates through her pupils and consumes my heart... I will always love her and I will always resent God and his stars for tearing us apart. 
     "Goodbye," is all that I can say. I stand up and walk away-- towards my destiny and away from where I wish my destiny lived, but elsewhere it lives.
    

     I get it... Our love was never meant to last, yet still I can't help but find it daunting, how quickly eternity came and went. It feels like only yesterday that you were in my arms. I can still sense your breath on my chest, but my fingers are growing cold without your touch. I tell my friends that I'm fine, I tell my mother that I'm fine, I even tell God that I'm fine, but my soul doesn't believe my lies. There is an aching deep within me, a voice in my ear that keeps whispering your name, and nothing has ever been the same since you departed. I feel like a lost puppy, sitting by the door waiting for its owner to come home. My tail wags no longer, however, since I have lost faith in my owner. 
     Long walks underneath the moonlit sky have served me no good. Music has no taste. And I have lost all desire for food or sleep or life. I still have a voicemail from a few years back. You claimed that you loved me then, I wonder where that love has gone to hide. I wonder who is holding you at night, I know how much you hate to sleep alone. I wish you would just come home and jump into my arms, stitch up my broken soul, I swear I can forgive you for it all. 
     Your perfume is still deep within the mattress. Every now and again I get a whiff in the kitchen or down the hall or on the couch that we spent so many nights lying in one another's arms. I have a new journal, I started it the day that you left. It is filled now with poems and letters and tears all for you. I wonder what were God's intentions when he told you to leave. I wonder if the angels cried for the loss. I wonder if the devil rejoiced at my broken heart. I wonder if the stars had to realign, or if this was always our destiny... ​

     I feel you in my veins. My heart murmurs your name. My soul cries out when you're not around, and, right now, you are not around. I wish that I could reach out and feel your touch once more. I wish that I could pull you in and hold you tight. I desire the graze of your lips on mine, but it's fine, I know destiny did not assign you my name.
   My knees are black and blue, my voice is raspy from praying out to the Lord that He, or whomever it may be, would rewrite our prophecies so that you and I were meant to be. I do not have faith in myself to survive in this world without you. You are my lungs. You are my dreams and without you peaceful sleep can never exist. I'm sick of these nightmares with open eyes. 
     I miss your scent, your lips, your hips, I miss all of you. I miss your mind and the places our conversations would go. I have traveled further and deeper in an hour with you, than 23 years on my own. I feel like my life is no longer only my own, but rather it is partially yours. After all, my soul is partially you and my mind is consumed by you and my heart knows only of you and my tongue shouts only your name. It's a shame that you and I are miles apart. It's a shame that my heart has to learn once more how to beat without you. I feel defeated without you. I have forgotten how to breathe without you. I am unconvinced that the world even exists without you.
     I see the trees, I feel the breeze, I hear the shouts of innocence, but none of it is real. The only thing that is real in this place is you and I... but you and I are no more. And I can't help but to wonder, if I... am also no more. ​