An ode to my friend

I watch you from the side walk, you talking and laughing,

As I sit and speculate how do you do that? So effortlessly!

You and I share the same skin, the same language, values.

You and I share dreams, fights, even our attractions for same men,

I watch and observe, as you flirt, I see yet another person being yours.

And that’s where I become I and you the other, the exotic, valued.

And I become just a skin, cheek bones, and voice, too shrill.

I want to envy you, hate you, as my skin burns in rage.

I watch you from the sidewalk, side tracked, sideways. 

Has anyone ever been triggered by a love story?

A benign yet extraordinary one that we hear again and again.

Trigger, such a weird word in a weird language where emotions get abbreviated,

Pain, despair, anger, desperation all wrapped up in one simple word, trigger!

As I sit and listen to the story, emotions come crawl up from deep dark depth.

As his face brightens, my shoulder droop, my heart stops, and the guilt overwhelms.

In last few months I have been told, unasked I need to cleanse my life by friends,

My intentions are well known for being as dark as my features and unapologetic as myself.

Is this world and all its happiness is stored for the cleansed, bright and apologetic ones?

Then why did I come? When did I get here? When did I lose my right to be loved and to love?

Trigger, a simplistic word to abbreviate so many emotions desperately, despair, anger, desperation. 

Cutie to a long QT, the journey took just a week,

A week that seemed like months-years and an eternity.

Our meeting so sudden, equally random the attraction,

The separation of two cultures, of birthdays ten years apart.

In one week, stretched in seven days for validation of number,

We made plans, broke plans, and remade to break them again.

It took us seven days to start a story and seven seconds to end,

Now when I see you down the hall way cutie, the long QT comes again.