Just hold on to me. 

I act like I’m hard and unreachable. 

The reality is I’m afraid to let anyone close enough to know that

I care. 

I care. 

That’s what no one really knows. 

So please, just hold on to me. 

Let me know this is real. 

That I can care without being hurt. 

Care about you.

And not lose you as a friend. 

Let me stay with you in this moment. 

Let me find peace in your dark brown eyes that let me fall so far into what we could be. 

Do you remember that moment we stared at each other? 

Is it as vivid for you as it is for me?

Do you ever notice how I look at you--clearly wanting to say something--but I don’t?

You hold me in the words you say to me as a friend. 

A golden gift of knowing you, trusting you, 

And you knowing and trusting me. 

You’re a good person, an even better friend, and I don’t think you realize how much I trust you. 

I’m walking a tightrope between friends and more than that with you. 

I’ll have to risk it. 

I’ll take these thoughts and kill them, bury them, hide them--to stay friends with you. 

You’re kinder to me than you should be,

And keep me sane long after I should’ve lost it. 

Is there really nothing there?

Nothing in this playful, joking friendship we have? 

Maybe one day I’ll ask you. 

Maybe once I’m really over you or so buried in my mind I make that mistake again. 

For now your name is written in me. 

Written in your perfect handwriting, beautifully set in ink. 

I can’t tell if your name is in my head or my heart. 

Tattooed in such a way I know it will be unbearable to remove it. 

To remove you. 

The further I go with this train of thought the more I know I’m breaking my heart. 

Maybe they were right. 

They said you broke my heart. 

You hadn’t then. 

Maybe today you will. 

Maybe tomorrow?

Maybe… maybe I’m shattered. 

You shattered me. 

I’m not sure what to think of that.