I wish that
you still liked me.

I wish that
you still looked for me
to smile at the joke you told
instead of feeling like it.

I wish that
the things that made you
happy
smile
blush
(in the middle of the day, even)
still included me.

I wish that.

But you are busy, now.
And I don’t know
how to be a thing that can compete
with better, smarter, flashier.
Not as full of hurt.

I wish that
I knew how to say this to you.
Speak my truth without having to
“speak my truth.”
Because maybe if—

But I have tried.
And so have you,

I think.

And it is hard to try,
sometimes.
All the time?

So instead
I will just wish that
you still liked me.

I have been happy*

*with an undercurrent of
Fear and
Uncertainty and
Hurt and
Envy or
Jealousy, maybe,
because I’ve never known the difference.

Fear for the thing that feels like it is
looming.
Sometimes, I can pretend that it is still
very

far

away.

Uncertainty because
of course, it isn’t
far away at all
and you are hastening it
even when you try
to keep it
to yourself.

And that is what Hurts.

Not just that,
there is more than that,
but.

Envy and/or jealousy
(twins, or cousins, however they’re related)
are familiar to me, family to me.
I covet my neighbor’s wife, as it were,
and the intensity with which
I peer through
the windows of my house
at what I want but can’t don’t won’t have
is enough to make me not eat
not sleep,
just not.

But I have also been happy*

*with an undercurrent of
Hope and
Contentment and
Joy and
Like or
Love, definitely,
because this time I know the difference.

Because I’ve known that
you have been happy* too.

Except
it’s just
me.

You can’t have been because of
this reason
and that
and it makes sense,
I guess,
although I think you could be
happy.*

I think we both could.
I thought we were.
That must have just been
my interpretation.