Unrequited Love
You offered nothing to suggest how love might grow.
Love - you said - is a thin charade exposed by sudden leaving.
Facing rejection, what could you bestow
on me to subdue this grieving
or see my paltry self-worth increase?
As dawn begins each day’s gradual decay
what can halt my ragged fall as I cease
to hope and hope to fade away?
Raking through the relics in past emotions’ store
I recall how feelings curdle and perish
and then I know, when there is nothing more
than landfill left for worms to cherish,
the only choice is for me to live out this lie
and wait for traitorous and unrequited love to die.