Desperate Run

The first lap- her, the second- you,
Will God please tell me what to do?
I can’t keep dreaming love this way
But that is all I do each day.

It’s catastrophic, so unfair,
Which one should hear that I don’t care?
I do so love each precious one
And curse myself if good for none.

There is no choice in what I feel,
With both it’s love, with both it’s real.
With both, so wrong to be denied-
And so I run but cannot hide.

Since neither one has forced a choice
My grateful heart can so rejoice,
But wonders if I shouldn’t choose-
But neither one deserves to lose.

It’s not like I am such a prize,
So often I myself despise
For getting in this circumstance,
But maybe it was more than chance.

Each one keeps telling me I’m good,
And I keep thinking, “If I could,
I’d gladly tear in two my heart
And give to each an equal part.”

But there is only one of me
That neither one may ever see,
But in our dreams, allowed, betroth-
I simply have to love them both.

John H. Bidwell