improved

you read my mind – again.
you wrote exactly what I was thinking
as I watched our mutual friend
kicking ass on stage.
she’s taller, skinnier, prettier, younger,
stronger, healthier, more energetic;
she has her entire life ahead of her,
can play guitar pretty well,
wrote most of her own songs,
and totally rocks the bangs.

at first I could only see how
she was far, far better than I;
how surely anyone looking at her
would forget all about the inferior,
flawed 1.0 version that is me;
how surely you would never settle
for such a pathetic substitute,
if you could strut around
with her on your arm.
but as she played I realized
that she is herself,
shining brightly in all her glory,
and I am
whatever strange and desperate
thing I am, but that to compare us
is to compare the sun to the moon,
the forest to the waterfall,
the endlessly susurrating sea
to the merrily babbling brook.

you got one thing wrong, though.
I have something far better
than a use for you.
I do have a need for you,
a pivotal role, in fact,
and it’s one that I wish you could accept.
it’s not as a chauffeur,
it’s not as comic relief,
it’s not as a shoulder to cry on,
but as a partner to stand by me, and
as a boyfriend to go on long walks with, and watch TV with, as a friend to confide in and listen to you –
reflecting yourself back to you
only better, because I see the inner and outer cornucopia of beauty in you that you are so sadly blind to –
as a lover to kiss and to hold me, and
as a reason to get up in the afternoon, and
as a slow-blooming flower by which
to measure my days.

you’re no substitute for anyone for me;
there’s no one else who has my heart.
you’re not my second choice.
If only you could say the same for me.