An Ode to my almost loves

People always write books about loves that consumed them completely, and before they knew it, they could hardly tell where they ended, and their object of affection started. The loves that they had for a brief fleeting moment before it was ripped away from them, or the loves that didn’t turn out to be love at all. But no one ever speaks about the loves that were so close to you all you had to do was reach out and grab it, but instead a ball formed in your throat. You stopped breathing; your hand was stretched out but there it stayed in hesitation. Pondering what you would even do with the love once it was securely in your closed fist. So instead, you withdrew. You watched the love you could’ve had, if you’d had the courage to claim it, blow in the wind but only for a moment before someone more willing laid a gentle and sure hand on your almost love, simply picking it up and take it home.

The thing about my love’s is that they weren’t always mine to reach out for. They were either borrowed or stolen, but never mine. Even when I could swear if I squinted hard enough, I could see my name etched on the side. I sometimes sit and wonder, is it really love if it's not reciprocated? Is it not then perhaps an infatuation? Lust? An imagination left untamed, running through fields of delusion. But then I come to the realisation that if I felt it, even if only I felt it, then it must be love.