FOR THE PAGES STILL UNWRITTEN
I.
Whiskey in my veins.
Tears tracing salt on my skin.
I surrendered.
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Take what you will,
give what you choose.
​
I’m ready.
I’ll take it all, smiling.
II.
What’s left now?
The universe has had its share
of humbling me,
especially when it comes to love.
Don’t get me wrong,
it’s not that I’m unafraid of heartbreak.
I am.
That’s why I’ve kept myself safe.
But safety has its own ache,
a quiet, lonely kind.
III.
How does one ever know he’s the right one?
They say, go with the flow,
but what if I lose years in a tide
meant for someone else?
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And yet, waiting feels like standing still.
There’s always something better, someone more.
Should I forget what I hope for,
and settle for what comes?
Or keep faith in a love
that might never arrive?
For the pages still unwritten,
I’ll keep praying, asking, hoping.
IV.
City lights danced
like promises upon my skin.
I stood at the edge,
eyes wide, breath held.
Then I closed them.
Head bowed.
And my chest found a rhythm,
as though God whispered:
You still have a heart.
V. Always the good one.
Right. Responsible. Fair.
But goodness is a fragile thing,
it stretches, gives,
and quietly tears at its seams.
Maybe that’s how the balloon survives:
leaking softly, never bursting.
I’ve walked away
from love that might have been,
because it didn’t feel right,
because I feared hurting someone,
or being the wrong kind of beautiful.
​
Icalled it principle,
but maybe it was fear dressed as virtue.
Still, I wonder,
isn’t goodness worth something?
Even if it leaves you waiting?
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VI.
How long must I wait?
How long must I hope
to be the writer, not the pigeon,
not the one carrying everyone else’s love,
but the one who’s finally written about?
How long until someone peers through me,
and stays?
VII.
I have love,
it rises in my chest like tide.
I must be useful;
otherwise, I fade.
Still, I give.
And still I wonder,
so many rivers cross lands
to find their ocean.
How does the ocean wait?
What if no river comes?
VIII.
I’ve made peace with solitude.
It taught me grace,
it taught me peace.
But even peace has hunger.
Universe, are you watching?
I won’t starve.
But I ache.
And I’ll wait.
Because I know what I want.
If you’re sending the dish,
give me a sign,
clear this time.
I’ve missed too many meanings,
arrived too late to recognise love.
Let me see it,
and not run.
IX.
God has been kind.
I am grateful.
But still, I ask,
not with shame,
not with doubt.
Call it greed,
call it love,
but I will ask.
I don’t want to wonder,
What if I never tried?
X.
It felt like an apocalypse,
even in the gentle morning.
Yet all’s bright now.
The ocean is still,
waiting for its river.
Meet me.
Join me.
Flow through me.
Leave, if you must,
but meet me once.
And I,
I will write the rest,
even if all I have
is one remembered page.