No doubt
there are always
happier, more love-filled lives ;
but the love that saves
is born in the solitary heart ;
that is,
you decide ;
you
where you are ;
you
who cry
and live
alone ;
the love you give
and,
when it’s hard,
swear by,
act on,
that love,
that forgives all,
saves
and decides
your life.
*
What you can’t change,
how do you meet it?
Do you fear it,
covering your eyes and,
if not,
shooting glances,
either resentful
or self-pitying?
How can you love
what makes
your prison?
And if you did
what then?
To say,
‘I see you.
I see you.
I see where I am.
I see where you are.
I see.
I feel my pain.
And I wonder:
what?
What…
What if I’m wrong?
to fear,
to hate?
What if what
I feel as a weight,
a punishment,
a curse,
I make…
I –
I make last
in hating,
in fearing,
in not knowing how to look in the eye,
what if I
in refusing to love
blind myself
to my own trick,
the key out
the whole time
in my hand?
*
Don’t waste your suffering.
You fall and you get up. (Or you don’t. But you decide.)
What if
you,
after falling,
forgave yourself
promptly,
fully,
seriously,
and moved on?
Gray Haskins 