the gray

i suppose there is nothing wrong with uncertainty
unfortunately supposing and believing are not the same.
"you only see things in black and white," i've been told
"you can't always expect an answer."
as if i do so because im blind to gray

i probably am blind though, in a way
but not because the rods and cones of my brain
cannot process the duller shades.
i detest mulling for too long in the gray
because im not strong enough to stay.

i changed my mind on the matter at least five times, i realize.
"yes" became "maybe" became "definitely" became "please" became "sigh."
so in that sense, i am no better than you
you who went to lunch twice to avoid a trivial confrontation
you who was so mind-numbingly sure of being unsure.

were i not already so entrenched in gray
i wouldn't have cared whether you were as well.
so perhaps that is what you desire
not a fellow man tracing circles in the dark without any conviction
but a blind man who is boneheaded enough to keep sprinting forward.

i tried to play the part, you know
i pulled out the list of action verbs and the present tense
let's do this, let's do that, do you want to.
but the verbs, while outwardly full of action
were stillborn by our mutual passivity.

that man isn't me.
me is the little boy who worries about irrelevant matters to the point of giving up
me is the newspaper boy who forcibly finds amusement in the obsolescence of his job
me is the foolish boy who interprets everything too much and too dramatically
me is the loving boy who plays with the concerns of adults without comprehending them.

so yes, i lied when i said i was confident things would work out.
i don't believe in myself or you enough to say that
because when two are trapped in the gray
moving aimlessly and cautiously
even the longest of time may not bring them to black and white.

who am i to you, i wondered
"a friend, but not romantically"
or that shoulder and arm you clung to for hours on end?
and so it was that i then decided to offer you the pureness of white
only to have it returned  another dull shade of uncertainty.
 
it's disheartening to have lost something that might have been dear to me
a friendship flirting with the chance of something more
though i guess now we'll never know.
who am i to you, i couldn't summon the courage to ask
a question i possibly never will.

yet even with all this uncertainty and ambiguity
perhaps this is the saddest part of all.
since that time what now seems so long ago
i've stopped caring about the question of who am i to you
not because i no longer wish for one or the other
or because i have already forgotten how.
no, i've given up thinking about that question
because i've realized that i already know your answer.

"I don't know."