Silent Romeo

"Sleep will never take me,
My mind is stuck on you.
You better be laying awake
Thinking of me too."
-The Midnight Riders, Save Me Some Sugar

If I could but compare thee to a summer’s day,
Without it sounding so cliché;
If I could speak my tale of woe,
Without it sounding like a tale of silent Romeo;

For you see, it goes like this,
I am a young man, quite erudite and educated,
But I am unskilled in matters of the heart,
Essentially a novice.

But there is this girl, who I love with all my heart,
But I can never say it.
Whenever she is around, my words fail me,
And I mumble some vague reply to her spoken words.

How I wish I was a poet of Shakespeare’s caliber,
So I might write her a sonnet, so she knows how I feel,
She who may or may not have loved me,
Whom I feel I have failed.

I was not there to take her to the prom,
To dance with her, to kiss her,
To be there for her when she needed me,
That I quite regret


Now I ache inside, knowing that we are parted
By miles, physical and metaphorical.
She is probably far beyond me, and my reach.
If only I could speak to her these words.

Does she know that I exist?
That THIS is how I feel about her?
Or am I just a face in her yearbook,
Like she is to me right now?

I gaze down at the page with her name and face,
And I wonder at what might have been.
If I was but a tad braver,
If I wasn’t so fearful of her rejection?

Does she know of my poetry?
Does she know that I speak of her right now?
I wonder if I can still be with her,
If I might get a second chance to be with her.

I fear that I have rambled far too much
That I sound like a cut rate Shakespeare,
Quoting sonnets and plays,
Trying to get out what I feel.

But still I stand, a Romeo,
Silent but to her, for my cheeks turn red
And my words just die in my throat
I cannot meet her eyes