waiting to live

Someone like me

I don’t get to choose.

I made this bed some time ago.

What’s left to do,

But love and lose,

But bear this crushing heart

Of mine.

This is who I am.

I can’t ignore the way I feel,

Even if I know you don’t.

Even if I can’t explain it.

I land again at ORD,

And nothing but loneliness

Is waiting at the gates for me,

To welcome me into its arms

The way I wished you would.

I brought this on myself,

I knew what would come of this.

I lost my will to hide

And starve these gentle feelings.

This pain is all I know

So I cannot turn away.

I only hope you make it quick

And I’ll disappear again.

This cycle is what I’m used to,

My fear of losing you,

The exhaustion of pretending

I don’t feel in love long enough

To go numb again.

I hardly know you,

Perhaps I’m not even worth

The gum under your shoe.

Yet your smile

Was worth it all.

Was worth

Every ounce of pain I suffered.

You might find yourself

Like me, growing older, 

Switching jobs, making less

Your hair thinning over stress,

And feeling your heart empty again.

Like the droughts that come and go

This one has lasted a long time.

I have worked myself to the bone

And all my love has run dry,

Though I told myself it wouldn’t.

I told myself I could do anything.

I tried to believe it, I really did!

But I quit my job for the third time

And I am sick of thinking like a kid

That everything works out in the end.

Maybe it won’t,

And maybe I can be okay with that.

Let everything come crashing down

So I can be washed away

When that sweet rain comes again.

Let it come, I say.

I burned your love

As unceremoniously as I could manage

And scattered it’s ashes to the wind.

I wept until my tears ran out and

In the years since

I haven’t cried again.

The wound your parting words left

I cauterized with every cheap pleasure

I could muster.

Wrapped in that numbness

I could move, except

My gait was heavier,

My hair grew thinner,

And my smile had vanished.

I had never learned

To love myself.

I gave you everything, and when you left

There was nothing of me to recover.

Looking back at who I was, I ask

If that was for the best?

The meaning of life:

The ghost that haunts us all,

So often led me to panic

Over heaven, 

Over hell,

Over a God that I believed in

And the version of him I constructed.

As the years have molded me

I came to see God’s sense of humor.

There was one meaning that shone

Through the smog of doubt, to me.

A mysterious source of light

Which all of us seek

Whether or not we believe in God.

Love, the source, the essence of everything.

What is God if not the essence of love?

What is the meaning of life

Without an understanding of love,

What is a life without love? Hell?

No matter how far away it is,

There is always a memory,

An imprint, a scar

To remind us of it.

Reach for that light

With everything you have, reach!

Everyone who has ever lived

And will ever live

Has known the same yearning,

Has wanted the same thing.

To love and be loved,

What else is there to do?

The essence of love is in everything.

It is a heaven we can achieve on earth.

It is joy, gratitude, patience,

Curiosity, fulfillment, and peace.

There is no human too wicked

To know love’s salvation.

This understanding gives me rest

In a world full of suffering.

He had a way of being

That turned heads,

Twisted tongues

And confounded countless minds.

This way about him was a certainty

Like death, and taxes.

And when he paid taxes and died

He did it his way.

And he was asked why, more times

Than he himself ever thought of dying,

Except there was no why.

The light of his way clarified everything.

If there ever was a path to why,

It might be said thus:

All that matters still remains

When everything is stripped away.

His way was inscrutable,

Undoubtable, unshakable.

Because it was his,

Because he earned that right.

And those pigeons that swarmed for 

The breadcrumbs of his thoughts

And asked why, why, why, why

Could not accept the answer was a way of life,

A daily practice unique to one man

And one man only,

Impossible to articulate

Or replicate.

This is it for me,

There’s nothing else to life.

Some days, it’s more than I could dream,

Some days, it’s nothing at all,

And all of that is mental.

Some days, I need everything I don’t have,

Some days I have everything I don’t need.

Some days I can’t smile,

I can’t dream, 

And I can’t trust anyone.

Some days I believe in love,

Some days I don’t.

More days than not I don’t these days.

Even though I love my family dearly,

Even though I go so far for love

It feels like nobody does for me,

Even though I know

That’s not true.

I feel bad that I feel that way sometimes,

I know it’s not true

But also it is, in a sense.

I know everyone has their own circumstances 

And I choose to care this much,

But I wonder what it would be like

If I knew someone who cared the same?

Maybe everyone does,

And they just can’t say it. 

What a shame! 

It eats me alive,

What tears I’ve shed thinking of it.

In this way and many others

I am so very alone,

And there is no cure

Even if I surround myself with people.

I don’t let anyone close,

I don’t trust them,

I don’t believe in them.

In this way I’ve nailed my coffin shut,

And truly, deeply, 

I am exhausted.

With my self imprisonment nearing its completion

With what energy will I stumble back to the world?

Knowing and not understanding,

Seeking and not finding.

The definition of insanity

Is doing the same thing over and over

And expecting a different result.

Knowing and not understanding,

Seeking and not finding.

Years have passed,

My scales still tilt toward the future.

If only I could be free to choose it

What then?

Everything has changed,

Nothing as I imagined.

My expectations are an anchor,

My regrets have formed an ocean.

Knowing and not understanding,

Seeking and not finding.

The echoes of loneliness, 

The biting isolation,

Surrounded by thousands

Yet unseen, unheard.

And finally, finding fragments of truth

In resignation, in presence,

In a hurry to go nowhere,

To deliver a smile to no one.

And have a smile delivered,

The delicate passing of flames

Is what has kept human spirit alive

In the face of constant resistance.

This prison is inside your mind.

Seeking is a waste of time,

Knowledge is worth nothing without

Understanding found within the heart.

That is where you must start.

I finally found freedom

When the coarseness of life

Stripped away everything else.

What was left was faith.

No matter how much I despised it,

Cursed it for its suffering,

It’s foolishness,

And it’s childishness.

I realized–

If this is all that’s left

Then how foolish can it be?

Or is it human to be foolish?

Is it human to suffer by choice?

It is the best of our nature to be childish, 

To laugh in the face of great sadness,

Great anxiety, and great suffering.

The one percent of the one percent 

Ever make it out of hell.

It couldn’t be me, I thought.

But my instincts had me clinging to something

On the edge of that vast, empty chasm.

“You have to climb, and climb, and climb 

And never give up”

Shouted the many voices of my heart and

The friends who didn’t make it out

And won’t ever have the chance again.

My fingers cracked and bled,

My muscles burned and tore.

When my energy ran out

By some miracle I found more.

And more, 

And more.

And that pin’s width of light grew,

Oh how the birds sang at last 

As I burst into the sun again!

And finally, for myself and nobody else I smiled 

Truly, freely, and weightless

For the first time in 25 long, long years.

And I could feel deep down

This newfound light reached 

Even those who aren’t around to see it

Through the window in my heart.

Those guardian angels, whose energy I borrowed

To find a joy I could have never imagined

Will follow me until the end of days

And live on through my deeds.

What awaits me then?

Tomorrow,

When the mourning dove sings,

To carry the death of yesterday

To where it is redeemed:

In the light,

In the endless possibility 

Of a sunrise I may never see.

The same way that a tree

Has no way to know if it’s seeds

Will ever find fertile soil and sun

But sheds them nonetheless,

Will I continue to fight

For a future I may not see,

And may not even be possible,

Because this is the path.