let it hurt until it doesnt matter anymore

I wonder why no-one wants me.

When I was seventeen, a boy wrote letters to me, silly messages of admiration, funny poems, left shyly on my seat, pinned on the class noticeboard in bravado.

We chatted online, we shared jokes and thoughts and opinions. But he never really talked to me in real life, except to gaze lingeringly at me.

I was waiting for him to say that he liked me, to make it real. he didn't, and 2 years later he just stopped talking to me. He just stopped.

In university, there is this boy who blushes when he talks to me, who sends me home, who carries my stuff for me and listens to my troubles. I don't feel a thing for him. He has never told me he liked me.

There's another guy who took a passing interest in me,and asked me out on a few dates, but I grew to dislike his personality, and avoid him conscientiously now.

My best guy friend tells me there is someone for me because i am kind and thoughtful and patient.

And then there's this wonderful and sweet boy. we stay up late to chat. he asks me out for lunch and dinner and to study. he tells me knowing me is the best thing that has happened to him in university, that im interesting and funny and cute and angelic and that is a dangerous combination. he's the one i want to run to when im troubled. he eases my troubles, and i know i can count on him to be there.

he has a girlfriend. he has never told me he likes me.

i've stopped being close friends with him, because it was the only way i could go on, sane and with my self-respect intact

Guys seem to take a passing interest in me, but no-one stops long enough to really want me and stay with me, and take my hand and make it real.
and i wonder why that is.

i feel like crying when i see a couple, because it seems like something i will never have. inside me i feel there is a river of sorrow, and everytime i fall and hope, the river fills up again.

im 22 now. and i feel old, so much older than the girl i was at 17, when i fell in love and longing for the first time.

i pray that the river inside me hardens