I carry a visitor badge into the hospital roof garden. I leave knowing what unrequited love costs me.

I hear your laugh cross the hospital roof garden before I see you.

I carry mint crushed beneath my palm between us when our eyes meet.

I see a visitor badge resting in your palm.

I understand that I need my love returned.

I remain beside you as the doctor calls you family and calls me visitor.

I ask the smallest question with the largest history.

I see your fingers tighten around a visitor badge.

I remember your thumb tracing calm into my wrist.

I resent the body for keeping what the future refused.

I place unrequited love between us and ask you not to soften it.

I watch apology gather behind your teeth.

I touch a visitor badge to keep my hands from reaching for you.

I follow your words until they reach what you decided.

I understand the wound when you love the way I love you, not me.

I breathe through the second that rearranges us.

I move toward the glass stairwell because the room has become too small.

I freeze as your palm finds the center of my back.

I let our foreheads nearly touch.

I hold still while your final words gather.

I reach for you inside the hospital roof garden, but you love the way I love you, not me.