Some say to me I'm pitiful <br />craving the joy you intend for another <br />I'm the shadow roommate <br />the homely friend of the beautiful <br />girl she is; <br />the one you'll marry <br />and I will position myself <br />for the bouquet <br />when it is you I want. <br /> <br />You knock and enter; <br />I lower my eyes <br />unable to look at you <br />and you take a flower <br />from her bouquet <br />and give it to me <br />because that is the way you are <br />kind to everyone. <br /> <br />And I take it to my diary <br />and put it between my <br />written pages <br />where it will scent my thoughts <br />of what will never be. <br /> <br />The cruelest love of all <br />lies in that Love's Aspiration <br />lies dead in the road <br />unnoticed. <br />It's not your fault or hers <br />it's my own secret obsession <br />from which I'll never be free. <br /> <br />I sit in the window, looking out down below <br />and I hear your voice: <br /> <br />' I just want you to know <br />I think you are great' <br />and then you left <br />and I could hear her <br />crying softly <br />in a bedroom <br />full of tears <br />and I rise to look to see about her <br />trailing guilt <br />and hope against hope <br />and wonder <br />still reeling <br />from the fact <br />that you <br />had spoken to me; <br /> <br />no longer invisible <br />filled with your words which have splattered <br />onto me <br />intended from my roommate <br />electrified that you noticed me <br />a single flower from a bouquet <br />intended for her- <br /> <br />awakening then <br />from yet another daydream <br />of you <br />and me.<br /><br />Lonnie Hicks<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-flattened-flower-from-the-bouquet/
