I Cannot Love You Honestly Poem by Masiela Lusha

I wish to bend your smiles so as better
To ease my truth.
I had lost the form of loving
When you last battled my love with yours.

Happiness is a coupling of love,
Now a breaking of our tides
I wish I had power to love you
For that’s where happiness lies.

You may tear apart your letters
As better forms of truth
You may tear apart my will
But my soul can never love you.

You may shout and answer
And force my temperament on you
With steady violence and accord
You may even hold me true—this I’ll let you do.

I could touch your tears and kiss
Again your paling mask of man’s defeat—
I could touch your curls and wonder
If it’s in this that true love breeds.

But behind the passion of something lost
I find myself in you
I mirror my face with yours
In level and in truth

And repeat the words of fate:
I honestly can never love you.