Contemplation over Scones

"I know I would fuck things up."
She poured herself another cup of tea
as I put jam on another scone. They were
scones I'd made, just for this moment,
having tea in the dining room of this
gloriously ancient home, complete with
its push-button light switches, and stained
glass overlooking the courting room with its
stately wooden benches and landscape murals.

There was something in the air besides
the Britishness of our little ritual,
a shared experience we discussed to take
our minds off of the busy-ness and anxiousness
that both our minds delivered.

We talked of our men, or rather, those men who
weren't ours - those men we know may
want to be, or may have wanted us, but weren't
with us, anyway. And she said exactly what
I felt I knew he had said to himself when
I opened my doors and offered my world.

The truth is (and these are only truths as I feel
or experience them, and may not be his truths at all),
he could never fuck it up - that even if he feels
he already did, mine is a heart that cannot be lost
if I feel that I know that something is there
beyond the walls and facades that have been set in my way.

But, more than that, it's not about what I've lost
or what he didn't want, or what I want, at all.
It's about reaching out, forgetting and forgiving
enough of the pain to know that all I want
is to be able to support the person who means the most to me.
However I am able.

And all of the screaming and shouting and angst
that I've let leak out of my fingers into these
silent, angry spaces, is not as powerful as love is -
As selfless love is,
the love whose pureness humbles me, that even unrequited
fills me with joy, just knowing it exists.
And if I can only be a voice of comfort or encouragement,
if I can be allowed to sacrifice my very bones
to be a support to him, and a friend when he needs it,
then I hope that he'll allow me to be there,
if I'm the one who knows him best of all.