She doesn’t radiate warmth throughout the world around her,

nor does she make the sky outside any brighter.

Not King Midas with his golden touch.

I used to think her smile made everything glow with a new purpose, 

but the more time I spent trying to get her smile to shine, 

the more I uncovered my own credulity. 

 

Now if I were to compare her to the sun,

I would say she is blinding, 

only able to gaze at her for mere

seconds before I must shield my eyes.

Instead, she is like a candle,

glimmering along a set path. 

Darkness becoming a security blanket

around her delicate shoulders, 

the way she holds herself makes

her stand out in a crowd. 

But when I pull her to the light,

so that she may cast hope for weary eyes,

she doesn’t burn for me. 

 

She burns her true beauty for the nights

when all other spotlights have gone dim. 

She dances across her wick

melting away my fear of the quiet, 

teaching me that looks across the room 

and gazes from underneath her lashes

are much stronger than words.

Every flicker is the curve

of her wrist as she sketches, 

flowing in a way no one else can

but somehow she makes it flawless.

 

But even then the shadows she tiptoes upon

remind me that she longs to stay in the crepuscule,

where gloom acts as a third wheel. 

Her light only made to shelter one, 

heat too minuscule to thaw the tip of my nose, 

not even enough flame for me to cradle with my fingertips. 

She is a blaze that my moisture makes fade. 

I can capture a fire and I can follow the sun 

but I can’t keep hold of a candle flame 

and that’s why my lips will never call her mine.