(2013)
I have always believed that everything happens for a reason
As surely as the seasons change, life rearranges to fit our inevitable fate
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I have always believed that everything happens for a reason
As surely as the seasons change, life rearranges to fit our inevitable fate
But I also believe that destiny is not apt to wait, that it is free to pass you by.
And if you ask why you should even try, I’ll say
"Your life is an occasion. Rise to it."
And thus, so I don’t miss my chance
I have something to say
and in advance I’ll let you know that I have no great courage
or tragedy to overcome
But I’ve been waiting for someone
waiting so long, in fact, to find you
that I fear when I do my plans will fall through
and the words I’ve longed to speak will have atrophied
from living in the cramped, dark corners of my mind
And you in your kindness would sit there
and listen to my desperate, ugly words
as I, horrified, hear all my planned prose
turn meaningless and feeble
like a wilted rose.
A foolish gesture, rarely understood.
I hope you will understand me
That you can sympathize with my affinity for Sylvia Plath
Because I have been lonely for so long,
can recite a thousand quotes about how wrong it feels,
but need only one hand to count the people who make me feel loved
I hope you will be patient
Because I am a writer, a thinker, a dreamer of dreams
And though it seems, at times, I’m ignoring you
Really, I’m just taking pause
Trying to put my awe into words
I hope that you are passionate
That I will have the privilege of being steamrolled by your moonstruck words
Of wearing the bruises of your affection
Of bearing, with pride, the beautiful imperfection
of your deepest, most desperate desires.
But most of all, I hope you will one day hear this, and know I am speaking of you.
Today, you are no one person. You are everywhere.
You are in the smell of her hair when she hugs me,
In his voice when he whispers in my ear,
In the words of her letters, lost and mailed late
In his eyes when he waited with me that winter afternoon.
And one day, the best of them will be all of you.
-
But what a treacherous thing I do.
Believing a person is more than a person
I’m realizing that people can inspire you
push you, and love you, but for all those neat tricks,
they cannot fix you, and they cannot change you.
That isn’t their job.
-
If you look back through my journals, you will see that my spectrum of emotion
is biased towards blue and grey
that there is guilt coloured sand in my jar of hearts
and the largest part of my soul is simply labeled
"lonely".
I've discovered full and empty aren't opposites after all.
You can be full of emptiness.
Because emptiness is the dead butterflies in your stomach
and the words you didn't say
Emptiness is knowing that you are not
"okay".
And I'm not.
And it isn't because something bad happened.
It’s because I'm waiting for something that has yet to happen
Whether we are passing eyes in a library
or a kiss on our wedding day
I am waiting for you.
And I don't know why you aren't here.
-
I have kept a journal
for almost two years.
That is six notebooks worth of life
And I am still so foolish
it took me until the end of this poem to realize
That loneliness does not beget love
And that you are not coming.
I am lonely because I am waiting
And you will arrive when I'm not.
-
All this time I thought I was lonely
Or sad
Or screwed up—
I was waiting.
Waiting for someone to save me
To love me.
But if I believe that destiny doesn't wait
Why should I?
I will exist and expire in this body
with this mind.
And the greatest kindness I can do for myself
and for you
is to stop waiting.
I'll marry when I marry
or maybe I won't
But don't think I’m giving up on you.
No.
I love you and will carry you with me.
I will embark on adventures.
And parting remarks will be forgotten
So that maybe, when we do meet
I will find my words have not been idling in the dark
That they have been busy tending the spark
That will one day grow to be a star.
I know you are there, even in the blue-grey skies
But it will be one unexpected night
when I'm walking home late
or can't sleep
that I glance up
and realize I'd never truly seen you
until I stopped looking.