Staying

I ask you to stay.
Here in my head I ask.
You don’t know I’m asking,
that it must be this way
or nothing: you knowing
without me saying.

I have been asked, before,
with urgency, and I wonder
if that is not why I left.
Yes, if someone holds onto me
I have to get away.
And if they do not want me,
very much, to stay,
they do not ask,
and in fact, leave me.
Yet, if they could
not want me so much
and still stay with me
I would not go
and we would be together,
well, indefinitely.

But this seems wrong,
you not asking
and me staying
and asking inside,
willing you, in vain,
to ask me.