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As cliche as I think these poems are,

I mustn't let myself contain the words exploding

from my fingertips tonight.

For you, my love:


To me, there is nothing more satisfying

than gasping for air at the end of a show,

or pushing your feet to their capacity of pain.


They all told me to bottle up my emotions, my experience

with love and heartache.

They said to take that bottle,

poke some holes through the lid,

and sprinkle its entire contents onto the field;

to breathe it in, and embrace it, and utilize it,

to make my next show the best it could be.

Then, they said, I need to pick it all up:

all the leftover seeds of my love,

the buds of the roses that could've bloomed but never could

because I never told you I loved you,

all the ashes of my emotions

that blew from my skin,

struck by the same gust of wind that took you from me.

They told me to throw it all back in my bottle,

and repeat the process every time they say,

"Do it again."


Now, I am working my hardest

for me, for them, all of them,

but you;

you are special,

you are the show, my show.

You are my inspiration.

All I'd ever wanted was you;

you to hold me, you to be my shoulder to cry on,

you to be there for all my ups and my downs, at my best and my worst.

I wanted you to love me loudly, the way that I loved you.

Loudly, and courageously, and unconditionally.


Instead, now,

I am loudly, and courageously, and unconditionally

dedicating my shows to you.

Instead, now, I want you

to be proud of me. Proud

of how far I've come,

and not just with my technique or my dynamics,

no.

I need you to be proud of me for letting you slip from the grasp of my heart long enough

for you to slip out the door, quietly, as if not to wake me.

I need you to be proud of me for not letting you go too long,

so that you'd have slipped from my mind as well as my heart.


As gone as you may be,

each day, each night, each practice, each runthrough,

I feel you here.

I see you here.

You are here. And I'm working my tail off, begging

for your approval.

You are here, pushing me, heaving me through the pain.

You are here, satisfying as the water that I need so desperately, right now.

You are here, and I miss you for it.


Whether that man in the basketball shorts was you,

whether the car with its tinted windows was you making sure I got home safe,

whether you are physically here or aren't--


Why am I speaking of you as if you're dead?

You are not dead; you are, in fact, the very reason

that I feel so very alive each and every time I hit that spot, or that note.

You are the reason I am who I am, I am how good I am. You

were my teacher, my mentor, my first love.


I will never forget that, never forget you.

I will continue to drink from that bottle, until my time is through as well.

Perhaps we will meet again someday soon,

and I will have the courage to sit with you on a park bench,

thank you for driving me so far,

for not loving me back,

for being the fuel in my engine of

the car that is our show, my show.


I endlessly love loudly, love courageously, love unconditionally,

but not only people.


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⏰ Last updated: Oct 27, 2015 ⏰

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