Talking About Love Outside Pat's Garage

We stood outside my friends garage, she lit and inhaled a Marlboro Light as I was inhaling her.
Her aching timidness felt like I was holding a hummingbird in my large hands, careful not to crush it as I listened to her soft words.
We talked about our feelings for each other much like two children of nine would do
Careful not to let it all burst forth lest we drown each other with the flood of pent up emotions or at the very least embarrass ourselves.

These emotional things are difficult for me, as they are for her
I could tell by the look in her eyes that It was a struggle to let me in
To trust me, to let me know how she felt deep inside
It was little different for me to do likewise

Our situations were both precarious at best
She being much younger than me, though like me, she also
carried many years of loneliness.
Those lonely years had extracted their tolls on each of us
Filling us both with reservation and fear

The situation complicated by our mutually shared disease
Mine in remission, hers still very much active,
sometimes ugly and always difficult to watch what it does to her
The depths that she has to suffer,
The incomprehensible demoralization she inflicts upon herself at times

Oh, how I wanted to take her in my arms right there
To feel her warm embrace, but I could not
She, (like me at one time in my life) still has the tendency
to look for someone to fix her and that I cannot do.
I am not gifted with that type of power

Because of my experience and the lack of hers I have to be careful for both of us
Never to harm her and in the process harm myself thus harming us
The damage of leaping in for self satisfaction or ego would be too great
I have done it and seen it before and it always hurts both deeply when things go awry and invariably they do

Patience is the operative word, along with thoughts and prayers
that someday she can get well enough to share what life may offer for both of us
True love, companionship, respect, dignity, peace of mind
Until then I bide my time, trying to be of service to her and being her friend

Will this work out they way that I would like to? I do not know
My sincerest wish is that she recovers and that would truly be enough for me
Isn't a definition of love and devotion really about putting the welfare of her well being ahead of my own? I believe it is and so it will stay.