Friend Zoned? Two poems to soothe you...

Friendzoned? Yup - you didn't crash — you were handed a parachute and it was a soft landing. Here are two poets - Julian Brolaski and Mirza Ghalib - five centuries apart, on what it's like once you touch down in the friendzone. What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be FriendsBy Julian T. BrolaskiWhy speak of hate, when I do bleed for love?Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongueTill I taste stuff that makes my rhyming roughSo flatter I my fever for the oneFor whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun.A rose is arrows is eros, so whatIf I confuse the shade that I’ve becomeWith winedark substance in a lover’s cup?But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough.If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fearIf I my tongue in lockèd box immureBlame not me, for I am sick with love.Yet would I be your friend most willinglySince friendship would infect me killingly.and the ghazal...No, I wasn’t meant to love and be loved.... by Mirza Ghalib No, I wasn't meant to love and be loved If I’d lived longer, I would have waited longer. Knowing you are faithless keeps me alive and hungry. Knowing you faithful would kill me with joy. Delicate are you, and your vows are delicate, too, so easily do they break. You are a laconic marksman. You leave me not dead but perpetually dying. I want my friends to heal me, succor me. Instead, I get analysis. Conflagrations that would make stones drip blood are campfires compared to my anguish. Two-headed, inescapable anguish!—Love’s anguish or the anguish of time. Another dark, severing, incommunicable night. Death would be fine, if I only died once. I would have liked a solitary death, not this lavish funeral, this grave anyone can visit. You are mystical, Ghalib, and, also, you speak beautifully. Are you a saint, or just drunk as usual?