i am waiting for the one moment that changes everything.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
And I am trying to move deeper.
Hoping to be helpful.
This pattern of time usage paints over an ancient wound.
And paints it with bright colors.
It’s a slight of hand.
A distraction.
So to attempt to change the pattern, let me expose the wound.
I do know that it is old
I do know that it is a hole in my being.
I do know that it is tender.
I do believe that it is unknownable, or at least inarticulable.
I do believe you have a wound too.
I do believe it is both specific to you, and common to everyone.
I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected.
It is the thing that is tap danced over, five shows a day.
It is the thing that won’t be interesting to other people if revealed.
It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic.
It is the thing that truly, truly, truly, makes loving you impossible.
It is your secret, even from yourself, but it is the thing that wants to live.
It is the thing from which your art, your painting, your dance, your composition, your philosophical treatise, your screenplay is born.
Thank you, I hate you, I’m sorry.
Thank you,
because without your support, I wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t have stayed when things got hard.
I wouldn’t have believed that I could find a life.
Thank you for the way you know me,
for being my best friend for what feels like forever,
and for raising the bar so high that I don’t know where to begin.
Thank you for knowing to let go before things got ugly.
On some level, you must have known that forcing me to fly
would force you to fly too, to do the things you know you need.
And maybe you even share the belief that our paths
will join us together again, and for always.
I hate you,
for not wanting it badly enough
for not believing that we could do this together,
for not following through.
I hate that you didn’t have the balls to take a chance,
to explore this place that’s filled with your dreams.
I hate how you don’t even seem to be doing
the things that made you stay.
I hate that the way you tell me how you feel almost always hurts,
and that most of the time you just don’t tell me at all.
I hate that you are the only guy I can imaging loving,
and you make letting go seem so easy,
like it doesen’t hurt at all,
like you don’t ever cry.
I’m sorry,
I left the way I did,
because of what it said to you:
that I would always expect you to follow.
I’m sorry I didn’t ever see it like that.
I thought paving the way would create
an adventure that would change our lives.
I’m sorry I didn’t wait until you were ready,
that I didn’t think I could, so the decision didn’t feel like yours.
I’m sorry that it seemed like your opinion wasn’t important,
when nothing could be further from the truth.
I’m sorry that I doubted our future, and made you doubt it too.
I didn’t know myself well enough to tell you
all the things that needed to change, and why.
We both thought we’d have more time, and then I left.
I’ll always be sorry for that.
[this is years old and has always been one of my favorites.]
and I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady
yeah you know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell
if ya ever wanna know how it felt when ya left
yeah if you ever wanna come inside
just knock on the spot
where I finally pressed STOP
playing musical chairs with exit signs.
Forgiveness
is for anybody
who needs a safe passage through my mind.
[reposting because of how much I love this.]
“I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings and you say I’ll give you anything. But you never come through.”
“‘Cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth.”
“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand. Do you know how it ends?”
Wishbone
Richard Siken
[Whitney sent me this poem today and there were some lines I really loved. I’ve had a few people tell me I sometimes write in a way that looks like it could potential be poetry, but I’ve never thought it that way. Recently I began to look at poetry differently, and I’m really starting to enjoy it.]
“my heart was too big for my body so I let it go. and most days this world has thinned me to where I am just another cloud forgetting another flock of swans, but believe me when I tell you my soul has squeezed into narrow spaces.”
“i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling).”
-e.e. cummings
