You say you love me 

but is it real?

Can you read my eyes,

those oceans where silence swims,

where I hold depths as vast as the sea?

Do you even know my favorite color,

the sunlight that warms me,

or the stormclouds that drown me?

What can light up my mood

when I am a wilted flower,

buried under sheets of gray?

Do you know how I like my coffee,

my little ritual of warmth in a cold world?

Do you even realize I’m a fragile vase,

cracking easily at the slightest touch?

Do you notice how I watch you

when you’re not looking,

like the moon following a drifting tide?

With these wide eyes, I see you

as if you were the last star in my sky 

the only treasure I have.

Notice the way I’m possessive of you,

the way I can’t bear to see you with someone else,

the way I search for you first in every room,

the way your smile blooms in me

like spring bursting through winter’s frost.

Do you notice these things?

I can never say “I like you” or “I love you,”

yet in small ways, I try to show it.

I didn’t fall for your face,

but for the lighthouse in your personality 

your presence,

your kindness 

as sweet as finding gold at the bottom of a river.

I know you won’t notice these things.

I don’t have the courage to say them.

So I’ll stay quiet like this,

and you may drift away,

or love someone else.

But you will live in my memories forever 

a flame that even time cannot extinguish.