One time,
you told me that in another version of this universe,
maybe we would’ve ended up together.

I thought,
why not in this version of the universe?
I don’t want to live in a universe without you.

And I thought
isn’t there any way for me to know what it’s like to have your love?
just to imagine the experience of your affection?

So I found one.
I imagined you into realness with ink and paper.
I crafted you carefully into my alternate universe,

the one where
you do see me that way, as more than just a friend,
and when I study the slope of your collarbone, you sigh.

I created it.
A world where you and I were lovers
and in the end it hurt so much, it felt like you left me anyway.

I lived
and died in that imaginary tomb.
and the imaginary you, full of imaginary love, died too.

And when I put my pen to paper now I sometimes feel the ache of the void you never filled.