Between the husk and the knoll

What is it about me that makes you glimmer?
My essence; my grace?
I confess, I am numb to you
I simmer in your sparkles as if your endeavour were a prism of mindless refraction
Your colours merely smothering my shade

I cannot love you as you want to be loved
I cannot spare any envy to accommodate you
Your outspoken inundation chokes my pen
Strangles my zen
You want my hand— take it
and I will lead you to the meadow
and let you wither between the husk and the knoll

I cannot love you as you want to be loved
I cannot entertain your synthetic pose lavishing in the poise of a lover
I cannot fancy your musing about our lives
To me, your ambiance is the artificial glow of a lamplit room
lambent are these stray feelings; their corners and planes lit with your desires
I collect these emotions without hesitance
and let them drip through my fingertips
I am not cold nor cruel
My palms cannot satisfy this overage

What is it about me that makes you quiver?
Is it the beauty you indulge?
Is it the wisdom that you delight?
I cannot love you as you want to be loved
I will not glove thy hand with your investments
I am taken; my spirit, enmeshed with another

What is it about me that has fixed your sentiment?
Is it the twist of my actions that is creating this false hope;
these desires that are raw that I’ve unreciprocated
I cannot love you like I breathe in the trees
I cannot absorb you like the sun on my skin
Nor the wind in my hair
We cannot meld like the dust to a butterfly’s wing

What is it about me that airs your station?
Is it the quips of my tongue steadfastly swung
Is it your pliable imagination that makes you sensate in these illusions that create these one-sided relations
I push back not to over-swell your infatuation
I push back to curb your indulgent rumination

What is it about you that fetters my vitality?
It’s this flaw in your context of connection
Your overbearing aura resurfacing mine with stone
I want to be unburdened by your obsession
I want to be the sparrow that never nests in your tree

Cast not a smile for me
For I do not love