I loved you with the quiet hope
that one day your heart would turn toward mine.
But jealousy followed us like a shadow,
whispering doubts into moments that should have been soft.

You saw me with every woman who passed,
even when my eyes stayed only on you,
even when my heart was steady, still,
faithful in a way I have never been with anyone else.

I tried to show you in a hundred small ways
that you were the one I chose
in the bright of day
and in the quiet hours
when nothing moves but memory.

But your thoughts kept drifting
to places I never walked,
places where I betrayed you
in dreams I never dreamt.

And so the distance grew,
not from what I did
but from what you feared,
from stories written in your mind
that my hands could never rewrite.

Still,
I loved you with the quiet hope
that trust would bloom one day,
like the first line of Rainbow Connection
floating across still water,
waiting for you
to hear it
and believe.