wanting to be your best friend,
get invited to your party,
carry your books to school,
sit next to you at lunchtime,
pass notes in class, sleep over...
there's no fool like an old fool.
the world is coming unglued, dear,
and I don't know how to survive it;
my courage is at low tide.
I'd feel a whole lot better
if we were in this together,
if you were on my side.
wanting to be your partner,
solving problems, making sketches,
arguing comfortably over tea;
wanting that extra something,
to get closer, to be special,
wishing you missed me.
I never felt I had met you,
so much as been reunited,
as if I had sought your face
in every airport, every bookshop,
spent a lifetime watching
for your peculiar grace.
wanting what I can't have,
to mean something to you,
to be understood, to be known.
it's not like you didn't warn me,
more than once, though gently:
you prefer to work alone.
o how unexpected --
surprising as a land mine --
this brief sweet taste of Home.
-- GPL Apr/May 2005 D. A. Clarke