Forbidden Look

A friendship close

you could see it in the eyes

when no one else was watching.

That smize.

The way it dares me to offer myself,

laid out willingly,

like something already chosen.

I fall into that trap without question.

For time has stripped the illusion of safety.

The feeling has always been equal,

spoken only through our gaze

silent to the mouth,

but etched permanently into the mind.

Every look,

every question we never asked aloud,

anchored in memory.

I steal a touch

innocent, passing,

just enough to remind us

what we pretend not to know.

The days move on.

Our love stays quiet.

Forbidden.

Like knowledge we are not meant to carry,

because the fire it would start

would burn everything we hold dear.

So it remains a secret

between you and me

shared only in glances,

stretched across an eternity of longing.

Let it bind us as friends.

Let the forbidden look burn bright.

It is a whisper I keep carefully,

the one I carry into my dreams.

If I could, I would take you somewhere untouched,

a place where nothing stands in the way,

where we could look freely,

without consequence.

But no such peace exists.

There is only the look

the unspoken understanding,

the fire kept inside a bond,

and the feeling

I will hold

forever.