Ladybug

[u/Ok_Bookkeeper_2057]

I have watched the green in your eyes

the exact shade of the nature you explore–

moss after rain,

new leaves uncurling in the understory,

the quiet places you walk when the world feels too loud.

Your skin is pale

like the flowers that insist on blossoming in snow,

delicate and certain,

refusing to wait for warmer weather.

I have imagined moonlight resting there

the way it rests on fresh petals,

soft and almost translucent.

And your hair –

red like the ladybug you love so much,

bright against the dark,

small and fierce and impossible to ignore.

I have pictured it flying

while you spin under a low moon,

someone’s hands steady at your waist,

someone tall enough to make the night feel safe.

I am not that someone.

I know this the way I know the soft hum

that remains when your voice is gone.

I spelled your favorite flower in the quiet air

while you sat beside me at the piano.

A song neither of us had to search for.

The notes rose and fell

and for a moment the classroom felt like a clearing

where nothing could be taken from us.

The look you gave me then

was worth more than any language I will ever learn.

You forgot the summer talks.

Seven concussions will do that.

But I kept every word.

I kept the way you light a room

simply by walking into it.

I kept the scarf you were knitting in class

and hoped, quietly, that it turned out as beautiful

as the girl who made it.

I kept the sound of your laugh

and the way your heart still believes

in dancing in the rain

and being called beautiful before a first kiss.

You want someone who notices everything.

Someone who would read the notes app

and the Pinterest board labeled “my future husband.”

Someone who understands that love is quiet and gentle

and stays through the ordinary days.

You want forget-me-nots and daffodils and daisies

in a bouquet that matches your stature.

I am not tall enough.

Not handsome enough.

Not the kind of man your eyes have already decided on.

So I will never say the three words

that live in my chest like a second heartbeat.

It would be unfair

to hand you a love you did not ask for

from someone you barely know

the way I know you.

Still, every moment we share

feels like something I am already losing.

You sit next to me and think nothing of it.

I sit next to you and memorize the air –

the red of your hair like a ladybug in flight,

the pale of your skin like snow-blooming flowers,

the green of your eyes like the wild places you love.

I hope the man you eventually choose

knows how to dance.

I hope he lets that ladybug-red hair fly

and holds you as if the moon itself

asked him to be careful.

I hope he brings you flowers

that remember your name

even when you forget the small things.

And if one day you no longer remember mine,

I will not mind.

I only ask that the story you tell your children

is soft and bright and true.

A high-school love pretty enough

to make them believe the world

can still be kind.

I will keep the piano.

I will keep the sign language.

I will keep the green of your eyes

the way some people keep photographs

they never show anyone.

You deserve the fairytale.

I was only ever the quiet chapter

that loved you too carefully

to ask for a place in the ending.