I Wrote it All Down

I wrote it all down
so I wouldn't forget.
I won't say I forgot
I ignored remembering
or maybe it meant something
different later on, or that it
suddenly didn't matter anymore.

I had a good faith intention on the
follow-through of the promise
to myself; the promise to just stop
thinking the rest of the world, or
just one, cares what I'm saying
while I'm saying it.

I'm going to write it down again
to remind myself that sometimes
you just can't have what you want
no matter how much you want it,
as if varying degrees of want
influence its outcome. It's all
right there in the laws of action
and reaction. It's scientific, it
should work. Why doesn't it?

One of life's loveliest

Goodbye Dream

Like slipping through my fingers
I say goodbye as there are no
further words to be said.
I have reiterated all the truths I
could possibly bear and still
the silence treats me like fiction.
I am in love with all that is possible
all that is magical, and with a belief
that dreams are not just fantastical
imaginative whims but precursors
to the real world we could have.
But God plays a hand at this table
and for whatever reason, has bid
against me and my wishful dreams.
I could be angry and demand
explanation but instead succumb
to a greater truth that not all truths
will be real, and as such, truth is
subjective to the whims of the heart,
a heart that will, for as long as this life exists
be scarred by the unfulfilled, unrequited
romantic overtures made over some twenty years.
I can live with this reality, as no other way exists
but deliberation on the failure to reach a more
blissful fruition, will undoubtedly haunt me.

Final Love Letter

It was always in the little things you did.

The high wave over the heads of workers 

when you spotted me across the shop.

It was the way you never said anything 

but I felt you in your eyes.

It was the brisk, light-footed way you 

walked; aerial, like gliding. 

You looked like a handsome boy 

all grown up in your business suits

trying very hard to win, to be the best

at whatever it was we were all doing.

I admired you, I trusted you, I loved you.

It was the familiarity of your voice

and the way your eyes sank into your soul.

I don't know if it was my sadness projected back 

or your own, but I felt connected to you in an 

unexplainable way, as if on another plane 

we existed perfectly and understandably together.

But in the only realm we could know, years and years 

passed without even the briefest glimpse into your soul. 

Still, in my heart is where you stayed.

I believed one day you would finally see in me 

what I saw in you, but that notion has come to an end;

a necessary acceptance that I was wrong. 

Very wrong. And I would be wrong about 

every other thing if I could be right about this.

To let go of what I hoped for for so long

brings me to tears each and every time I try.

But I am able to wipe them away quicker now. 

I feel something there with me

coaxing me out of my sadness. 

Maybe it's just me being all grown up

ready to accept this was one-sided and in my opinion

the worst account of unrequited love ever. 

Ophelia did go absolutely mad though, so there is that. 

Well, maybe it will all make sense in the next life. 

Maybe we'll see each other there.

A Place for the Unanswered

I continue to wonder but myriad
answers dance above my head
like lightening bugs in the pitch black
yard between the trees.
I try to catch one, then another
but there are too many
to focus on the exact right one.
Maybe Google has an answer.
It's been a doctor, a teacher
anything we've needed it to be.
Why can't it be a sage too?
One we can be awed by
addressing life's long-held queries
as in the here and hereafter
the beginning and end
death and rebirth
or perhaps, instead, I could be led
by new profound sensibilities
where knowing no longer appeals.
Curtains, then, will close
on fraught waters giving way
to an unflustered sea
and the questions melt away
like a candle burning brightly
through a dark night
till the sun needs it no more.

The Perfect Life

I hung two grassy birdhouses
on the porch and waited.
I was seated in a large auditorium
with sharpened pencil in hand
scannable answer sheet
opened test booklet;
more than three months ago.
I mailed one, two
twenty-something love letters
to the man of my desire;
nothing in my mailbox yet.

As busy as life can be
waiting occupies the most space
carving out larger holes
with days spent waiting for
tomorrow, next week, next month
for something to get better than it is.
Waiting holds hands with patience -
amicably coerced nonetheless -
and thankfully so as it prevents
from agreeing to eat dirt
just to cease the waiting.

We wait for tv shows to return from hiatus.
We wait for free or overpriced shipped
packages to arrive on the doorstep,
neurotically checking tracking data
as if this could expedite its arrival.
We are compelled to push, pull, do
whatever it takes to make it go faster,
happen sooner, arrive quicker.
If we could somehow accelerate
the pace of waiting, or stop it altogether
we would have ourselves the perfect life.

Something Good

She calls him hubby, still, after 30 years.

He's at the podium at the ASPCA fundraiser;

golden, sweet mutt at his side.

He says his wife's name many times

speaking on their black lab's passing

and the heaviness left on his wife's heart.

The golden mutt's busy, friendly tail entertains.

He saved her, saved them both.

I watched the video on FB like a nosy neighbor

not sure if I was more content knowing

they clearly belong together

or that I'll never be someone who says hubby.

Freedom

I'm finally done with it. I'm cured. 

Diseased longing poisoned my 

blood too long, so I bled and bled 

to get the very last of you out. 

The endless possibilities I carried like a hump;

severed, amputated; thoughts, desires, hopes too

discarded, lain to rest in the same heap.

Relaxed, free of pining, waiting

holding on as you pulled hard and away. 

I'm sure you will relish your own sort of freedom. 

The grip, the unrelenting expectations

were exhausting me too.

I’ve had my last vision of us reuniting like two lost souls found. 

The urgency to act, to repair our lives with one another, ceased.

I will forget you as you forgot about me long ago.

You've asked many times for me to do this 

but I didn't want to hear you. I hear you now.

Someday

When I thought about going to see you 
after such a long time
my insides lit up like moon-kissed stars.
The vision of me seeing you and you seeing me, 
simultaneously, like in the old movies, 
where years of longing have finally reached its end,
was too surreal, too promising to deny participation.
But further deliberation reminded me 
how nothing really ever plays out in life 
as it does in your mind's eye.
Two days later I boxed up the imaginary reel
and sent you a card instead. 
It simply said, "Sadly, someday may never come, 
but then who ever said there would be a someday?"