if i loved you less than a hundred and ten percent
i could cut off all this (unrequited?) feeling with the ease of "no need to try"
however, i've been known to score highly/overachieve in such tests and trials as these
and so it makes me recoil at the thought of freeing myself from you
of not giving you my all
and if your worth was any less than one hundred percent of what it's always been to me
perhaps i wouldn't cry at your switch to the platonic
at you reducing us to the insulting status of relationship limbo
or at the immense paranoia covering me in waves of "how did i mess up?"
and perhaps i could regret less the chasm you placed between us
perhaps a percentage less angry i would be
would be by you ending (stifling? delaying?) the possibilities of our potential
perhaps less hurt would be i when you close(d) yourself off to me with an actor's ease
but if you hadn't convinced me that you believed me to be worth so much more
more than i knew my real value to be
i wouldn't have done such a good job in our joint investment venture
i wouldn't have excelled so much under your management
i wouldn't have overachieved to the point of scaring you
causing you to take me down the huge notch that lies between loverfriend and friend
and though it hurts me to death to be demoted by you in this way
i find a sickening ecstasy at remaining somewhat in your employ
at watching my naïve self cry:
"please, teach me to be a good little worker
i'll do anything to be promoted again"
(while the critics, indifferents, and objectives around me laugh and shake their heads
and "friends" pity the plight of Mister Hope Springs Eternal as convenience allows)
maybe if i had realized how much more importance romance held for you
as a thing of theory and daydream as opposed to practice and actual method
perhaps i would have held back and studied the percentages more carefully
perhaps i wouldn't have thought of your pretty, malice-free lies as absolute truth
the problem, however, is that numbers can never tell you anything
perhaps you'll take me back
worse, perhaps this is the ultimate end
even more worse, perhaps this is where it all starts
and worst of all, i can feel myself shutting hope back into its box
but perhaps someday you'll know
you'll know what it is you want
what the hell it is that this blindly loving/loyal boyfriend is preventing you from attaining
you'll be man enough to want to turn your pretty theories into glorious reality
and you'll let me in your door again to help you achieve this
whatever the case though, i'll be waiting for you
whatever action you take upon your return
whether you reopen that box for me or sink it further into its current mire
i'll be waiting for you to live up to your one hundred percent
and to be man enough to give your humble employee an answer