He cannot love me, I cannot let him – a poem

I seek complicated energy
A throwback to
Teenage versions of me
Who felt misplaced
Miserable
Unseen
Reflecting in the face
Of men who now
Undress me.

I’ve manifested
Manipulators
Through manipulating
Thinking love
Was an alchemy
Intimidatingly
Above me
A formulaic concoction
Of radical complexity.

And yet here it resides
Still
Inside me
A simple, calm
Beautiful effigy

So while he’s beautiful
My man
In all his layers and
Soliloquies
He’s fire, I’m air
A mixture that cannot be.

I blow on him and he erupts
I starve him and he dies
He sucks from the room
What I need
To survive.

We’ll never find the middle
The smooth, cracking hearth
While each of us waits
Chests inhaled
For the next explosive spark.

Our houses are built adjacent
Meanly, on shaky foundations
Each trigger
An addiction.

A love too large
For a connection too thin.

He cannot love me
He tries
But I cannot let him.