One-Sided Flame Poem by ashok jadhav

I loved you with the fullness of morning light,
with hands that reached before you knew my name.
Every glance I offered carried a hope
that never found a place in your heart.
Your absence was not sudden, only steady,
a quiet refusal that wrapped itself
around the pulse of my days,
teaching me how heavy longing can be.
I built a world in which you could exist,
filling empty corners with imagined smiles,
while you passed through, untouched, unseeing,
leaving me to carry the weight alone.
Love unreturned is a patient ache,
a shadow that follows even in brightness,
and I am left walking beside it,
learning that to give is not always to receive.