Deference

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
-Proverbs 13:12

You’ve never been off-putting
even though I’ve put off
being with you for three years.
We’ve both wanted the same thing:
each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,
each other’s heart.

When those appendages and organs
are in proximity,
it hurts to move them apart.
Like magnets
they want to come back together.
But the distance makes me sick
and it hurts when I speak.

Someday our hearts will be entwined,
and when they are, my dear,
we’ll have a giant tree.