Talent

In spite of my admiration for you, we cannot be together.
Destiny has in mind another fate.
My futile efforts to become closer to you,
Only remind me of other, more feasible suitors,
Whom I must relinquish you to.

I know your demands, and strive to meet them,
But they are such elusive transformations for me.
You desire those youthful, handsome, and conventional,
While I am just a priceless old man, robbed of his youth.

We can attempt to change things,
And be together, but that would only be falsely pretending,
Pretending that the ending will change.
Our relationship parallels life,
So I admire you from a distance,
And feign living a life that I don’t really live…
That us together is a reality,
And my loneliness is a dream.

The tragedy of our relationship is that you are Talent,
Not Love, though I sometimes wish the opposite,
Because maybe then you would be easier to court.
-Akeem Lawrence, 4/22/08