don't ya see the starlight?

you do not have the words to tell him

but the sunlight falls on his golden curls

and you have never seen anything more beautiful,

though once you lived in halls filled with treasure beyond

imagining, and oh, you are old and he is young, and if ever

you were as green as he, you cannot remember it.

all your life, you have known hardship, and your face is lined

with the sorrows you have borne whereas his face is lined only with

laughter, and you have watched your home devoured in flame,

but his is safe and comfortable, and you envied him for

belonging somewhere, anywhere.

you belong nowhere.

(you think you could belong with him)

he looks at you as though you've hung the moon, and you look

at him when you think he can't see and for all your courage,

you have not the power to say all that is in your heart:

that there is more of good in him than he knows, more of wisdom

and kindness and bravery than you had expected to find,

and that you cannot bear the thought that a day will come when you are

parted from him, when he will return to his home.

he is your home now.

of all the treasures you have beheld, he is by far the fairest.

you know this, if you know nothing else.

you love him.

you love him.

the hardest part of it is this: you never told him, and now you never will.

you hope he knew; you think he must have, but you can never be sure.

there are so many things you wish you had said, like how his eyes were so blue

you thought you'd drown in them and how his arms were more a home than your house has ever been

and how, though you're only a little thing, he didn't make you feel small.

you are not the same as you were and by his will or not, there is no going back.

you are too big now, for this place, and you left your heart with him, buried beneath layers of stone

you close your eyes at night and see his face, and when you wake, you feel that you could almost

touch him, and you remember his hand cooling in yours, and the eagles came and it was

not enough, not enough, and you want to rage and scream and shout at the cruelty of it all

but in the end, you weep and you curse yourself for staying silent, and you wonder:

if you'd revealed your heart, would the end have been different?