One life to live

Caught under a rock of expectation

Wings clipped by the heavy burden of duty and survival.

A glimmer of hope in the sparkle of dreams,

Foreboding cut short of doom and gloom by the words of a poet.

Love, suddenly accessible through visions of a future not yet written.

Or are they just illusions? A mirage of self-delusion in order to cope with the rising tide of obligation, far beyond the reach of a happy ending?

As a fire crackles, dancing in the hearth of comfort,

Is the fire of my soul worth the risk of humiliation,

Threatening to snuff out all the drive once burning inside, slowly growing cold with chronic disappointment?

I manufacture desire and excitement with my red wine and my cheap pen, never allowing anyone close enough to break a heart already blackened by the soot of suitors unworthy and ill-intentioned.

I seek out and seduce unavailable men, men who couldn’t possibly work out given my situation.

I create tragedy from impossible situations, pretending that love exists so as not to actually feel the damage love could actually do in a more realistic situation.

Are we all actors living out a tragic fantasy? Or is there such a thing as real love?

Can a heart really be broken?

I sometimes wonder if the tragedy of my life will be not fulfilling my potential rather than never finding love.

Which is worse?

Is the purpose of living to love and be loved, or is it to serve my purpose? Why can’t it be both?

These questions are why we seek poetry, to lift the burden of existence.

I want love, passion, kissing…

I also want freedom of expression and purpose.

I want to say yes and no and maybe so…the lingering of possibility.

I am learning that there are no definitives, no absolutes.

Faith isn’t comforting.

That is why it takes courage to leap and commit, knowing we could fall to our death and destruction.

My heart bleeds wine and tears, but then it dries up, crusts over, and prepares my soul for the long road of survival, providing for self and others.

Only water, pouring through my veins, can rehydrate that hope of loving again.

Fear enters my body again, aware that love lacks reason…

Reason is my anchor to reality and survival.

Books, knowledge, facts…drenched in a world that constantly tells me to be pragmatic, not romantic.

Romance is a facade;

Happy endings don’t exist…

Until they do.

Hope is what keeps us moving, like doves we seek that eternal peace, soothing us to sleep.

Hope helps us find our wings again, ready to deliver that twig across the sea, reminding us that we will find the shore…our home…our belonging.

And all will be well.