Better left unsaid

Maybe I was looking for some meaning to my life, or maybe at first it was a passing fancy to pass the time away and make me forget my own miseries.
But I wanted him.
The boy with the bright eyes, and the well loved, dog eared book in his hands.
He had the ability to be both the life of the party, making all our friends laugh until they couldn't breathe, and yet there was another side of him that was different.
He could be serious, he could be introverted, he could even be quiet.
But this was the side of him that scared me the most.
I wanted this boy, but I did not take him for my own, nor did I ask for him.
I was merely his friend, or maybe in his eyes. a little kid who followed him around, but to me that was my entire universe.
Even the thought of his embrace was too much for my young heart to handle, let alone other things.
This boy was perfect. But not perfect in the eyes of the norm of perfection.
Every quirk, and flaw in him, just made me want to know him more.
That is how he was perfect to me. He was perfectly imperfect.
I didn't care.
And at times, when I thought I had lost him forever, I would cry silently, never wanting to worry him.
Always regretting never making that damn casserole.
Praying to God that my best friend would make it, at least one more day.
He was scarred, both physically and emotionally, and all I could think of as a child was just to be there.
That's all I could do.
Over the years that I never spoke to him, I thought of him with a pain in my heart.
Literal pain shot through my heart when I remembered his bright eyes staring at mine as we spoke.
Or the way he would tease me to make me feel better.
But I always thought I was just a stupid little kid to him.
So on goes the words that are probably better left unsaid.
Me, hoping you might read this.
And I, reading my favorite of your writings.
Especially the one he would never admit he wrote about me, for my seventeenth birthday, about how we hadn't seen each other in a while.
That poem that ripped hot tears from my eyes and streamed down my face.
The story he gave me for my eighteenth birthday, more precious to me than any hand bought trinket.
So, no, he's not perfect.
Sometimes I can't stand him and I hate his guts.
Like when he wrinkles his nose when he thinks I've said something dumb.
Or the way he beats around the bush about everything.
Or how he's very harsh in his words sometimes.
I'll admit I hate when he's like that.
but then again,
there's more things to like about him than to hate.
So what am I saying?
Maybe I'm getting something off my chest.
Maybe I want to tell him, but in this cowardly way.
Maybe I really am stupid.
But I'll always be grateful for the way he befriended the friendless little girl with the tangled brown hair and bright blue eyes.
But maybe this was just all for nothing.
Maybe this, all of this,
Was better off unsaid.