I have learned the shape of waiting,
the way it sits beside me at night,
quiet as a shadow,
heavy as a hand on my chest.
I have called it patience
when it felt too much like pain.
I have dressed hope up in softer words,
told myself love takes time,
told myself good things grow slowly,
told myself you might still turn
and see me standing there.
But how long can a heart stay open
before it starts to feel like a wound?
I watch you live your life
while I keep mine half-packed,
ready for the day you choose me,
ready for the moment your eyes change,
ready for the sentence
I have written in my head
a thousand different ways.
Maybe one day you will say
it was always me.
Maybe one day all this waiting
will become a story we laugh about,
the hard beginning
before the beautiful part.
Or maybe
I am building a home
in a place you never meant to stay.
That is the cruelty of the long game:
no one tells you when to stop playing.
There is no final whistle,
no scoreboard,
no proof that the ache has purpose.
Only the restless mind
walking circles at 2 a.m.,
only the tired heart
asking the same question
in different rooms:
Is this love,
or am I losing myself
to the idea of being chosen?
I want you.
That is the simple, terrible truth.
I want the ordinary things—
your name on my phone,
your hand in mine,
your bad days shared with me,
your good days made brighter
because I am there.
But wanting is not a promise.
Waiting is not a relationship.
And loving someone deeply
does not mean they are learning
how to love you back.
Still, I stay close to hope,
even when it burns.
I keep a place for you
in a future that may never arrive.
I pause my own becoming
for a maybe,
for a someday,
for the fragile possibility
that you might look at me
and finally understand.
And I hate how much of me
still believes in that moment.
The long game has no mercy.
It asks for your sleep,
your peace,
your appetite for new beginnings.
It makes every silence a sign,
every kindness a clue,
every distance a punishment
you pretend not to feel.
So I stand here
between devotion and surrender,
between what I want
and what is slowly breaking me.
Perhaps the bravest thing
is not to wait forever.
Perhaps love should not require
a life placed on hold.
Perhaps being chosen
should not feel like begging
in slow motion.
But tonight,
I am not brave enough
to let the dream go.
So I play one more round
of the long game,
with a heart full of love,
a mind full of questions,
and the quiet fear
that by the time you finally choose me,
there may be nothing left of me
to give.
