I will not wait
I spent the last twenty five years of my life waiting. Waiting for something or someone to give my life meaning.
I wait and wait and someone comes along and I rejoice in their appearance in my life. I have meaning and purpose! Joy!
Then they leave and I am left with questions and doubts and the waiting begins again.
I wait for the time to be right to do those things I want to do. I get close and then something happens that puts those plans on the back burner again. Maybe next week. Next year.
I even wait for myself to achieve the level of awakening that I believe will allow me the right, that qualifies me, to pass what little knowledge I have to others but each step I make on this path only reveals what little I actually know and the sheer impossibility of the task.
Still I wait.
In the end all I am waiting for is death.
I’m done waiting.
I will not be left behind by my own apprehension. I will embrace my impatience because at fifty three I have much less time to waste waiting for something or someone or anything or anyone than I ever had and as each day passes I have even less.
I will not wait to die
Or raise myself
To touch the sky
I will go on
Though the path has no end
If I must
I will travel alone
I will not wait to love
I have been gifted
With love
I will not wait to express it
To share it
Even if only with strangers
I will not wait until it clears like a mist
I will make a storm of it
And all who are caught in that storm
Will know
I did not wait
I think I’ll go camping this weekend… or maybe next…
Image: “Left Behind” by Hussam Eissa
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JM (not sure how you like to be addressed–Josiah Matador?) I discovered your page a few days ago, and love your writing and poetry–really moving. The rawness gave me hope that good people are out there: good men that are not afraid to be vulnerable to their emotions, express love, express longing and heartbreak. Reminiscent of James Kavanaugh poems (such as Remember Darling) with drops of Pablo Neruda (If You Forget Me), Hafiz (In a Tree house), and then your own element. Thank you for sharing!
Josiah Matador! I like that 🙂 I’d tell you it was something clever like “just me” or profound like “Jungian Master” but the J is for James.
I’ve read a lot of Hafiz and some Neruda but I don’t think I’ve ever read Kavanaugh. I’ll do so today.
What gives you hope is actually a little disheartening to me. I hate to think that I am a rarity in a world where authenticity and vulnerability are what’s needed most. That’s one of the reasons I decided to start sharing my thoughts. If I can convince just one person to embrace who they are; all the happiness and the sorrow and the longing and love and pain, and they allow another to be changed by it and those people go on to affect another and another, like a virus, maybe things will change somewhere down the road.
I’m not expecting to bring about a love pandemic but if I can infect a few people with my emotions then I’ve made a start.
Thank you so much for the grand compliments. I would never consider myself anywhere near the talents of Hafiz or Neruda ❤️