Do you like me? __Yes or __No

what happens when she says no?
After everything you are is there for her to see
and she slowly pushes it back across the table to you
in a neat little package wrapped in "I'm sorry"
with a sad half-smile
and an almost casual brush of your hand

in that moment you are truly vulnerable,
laid open like a fish on a filet board
guts and all open for all to see

you're suddenly scrambling
to pull some dignity from the tatters
of whatever you offered her
cloak yourself in stuttering assurances
directed more to yourself than to her
wanting to be anywhere but there
stifling the need to explain,
to prove to her that this could be good
and right
and true.

All she has to do is believe...
but she doesn't.

What happens when she says no?
when you have lost a little something of yourself
that can never be recovered,
not really
when the tiny hole is made in your heart
and slowly fills with the cold metal left by rejection
hardening under the truth of reality's sun

what happens when she says no?
I can’t know for sure.
Cause tonight she said yes.
-KnowOne
© William Crabbe 1999