<p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Duty, honor, and sacrifice.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Dedicating my life to these elements, for family and country,</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> leaves little for myself in return.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">It's why I indulge in a no-strings hookup with a handsome stranger</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">mere days before heading half-a-world away.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Except one night turns into a week-long fling,</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">creating a connection at the most inopportune time.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">And neither of us want it to end.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Staying in touch is easy at first, but dwindles to</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">radio silence and distant memories as time passes.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">I didn't expect him to reemerge in my life months later,</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">now belonging to someone else.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">It should be enough for us both to walk away.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">To push down this relentless, aching want.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">But we don't...</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">We can't.</span></p><p class="ql-align-center"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Because the heart always wants what it can't have.</span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>