This is not a ode to love in the verity that you may think.

I do not dream of what the feeling of your lips would be on mine,

or if our bodies would fit perfectly together.

Instead I think of the stories I could tell at your wedding

and you at mine,

the adventures we could dream up

or the days where we do nothing but we're never bored

because how could we be

in the presence of each other?

 My nightmares are of memories of the verbal grenades

hurled back and forth at each other,

each ignited with anger and exploding with their own

terribly untrue words not meant.

When you tell me you don't want to hear it

so my ink stained fingers bleed apologetic words onto a page

because you said hear not read

 and maybe the ink can make the words look prettier

then my shaky tearful voice can make them sound.

 

I want nothing more than to tell you how I feel,

how often the loneliness creeps in to fill the void your absence has left

and how

when you return it feels like you have brought with you the summer sun

 to chase away this endlessly cold winter darkness.

Flowers grow in my footsteps toward you because the warmth of your presence

has allowed beauty to grow in mine.

It chases away the weeds wrapped around my heart

and lets lilies grow in their place.

 

So yes, I love you with all my heart

but never in the romantic way a girl is through to love a boy.

This is not the friend zone or any other

terrible metaphorical place that a girl can place a boy

she is friends with.

This is the place in my heart between my older brother

and the girls I call sister though

we were born months apart to different mothers in different places.

Where I want you to wipe away my tears

and to hug you when you're too much of a "man" to asked to be hugged

but I can see it in your eyes,

that same look I see so often in the mirror

moments after I have to force myself to roll out of my bed

 after a long night of demons and nightmares.

This me loving you so innocently

and in the simplest way I know.

The way a child loves another

before there is such thing as attraction or romance,

before the thought of kissing someone was appealing

and there is only just pure in essence love.

 

This is not a traditional ode to love,

this is not a love struck school girls poem to her crush

and most certainly not a romantic gesture in anyway.

There is no lust behind my words

or any hint of attraction behind my feelings.

This is a poem about friendship,

the simplest and purest form of love I have ever known.

Because friendships are not predestined

or biologically predisposed.

There is no part of you that is attracted to this person

because you would make offspring

that would survive the best and pass on your genes.

 

Friendship is a type of love that is a choice, and I chose you.