Love Poem 41
Dearest Katy,
You asked me if I would write you a poem and I said
you know, when Townes Van Zandt’s first wife asked him if
he would write a song for her,
he wrote Waitin’ Around to Die,
and I smiled and laughed and
you didn’t smile or laugh.
Or, maybe you did, but either way I don’t think
you saw the humour
the same way I saw the humour
and that is usually the way.
I see things from a different planet because
I am from a different planet
and I never understand why I never feel seen or heard.
And I scream at the top of my lungs for both of those things,
usually to the detriment of myself and others.
But,
you see me and hear me and feel past the noise,
all the shrieking and raging and the
inexhaustible fervor
with which I exist on this planet.
I know it is beyond tiring to listen to
someone howling until their throat is raw
and
it is beyond frustrating to
try to understand
someone who doesn’t understand himself,
or understand what he is feeling,
or what he is thinking.
But, somehow,
when the stars aligned all those years ago,
I was lucky enough to have paid attention.
As someone who lives in the stars, I don’t always pay
attention to the stars. Here on Earth, people say
you can’t see the forest for the trees
and the same sort of idea applies in space.
But,
I was lucky enough to see the stars as they were and
recognize
something special
might happen to me,
something that doesn’t feel like it always happens.
There are a lot of times where
I feel trapped on this planet,
a prisoner of my own form, my own mind, and my own heart
and
that all of the
hurt and
pain and
guilt and
aching
hold no meaning aside from being sentenced to
suffer through it all.
But,
you once told me when I was
bitching about my luck
that maybe I have been so lucky already
there isn’t room for more luck,
and that really stuck with me.
What more luck do I need?
What other luck can I want?
Do I need the luck of material gain?
Do I need to win the lottery?
Do I need to be plucked from a crowd?
You showed me life on Earth can be worth it.
Because there I was,
all those years up on the cross
wondering if love was something I deserved.
You showed me light can exist in the void,
that light can escape a black hole.
Existing during daylight hours and beyond the shadowlands
was something I’d never considered
until you showed me the way.
I know this love poem maybe isn’t what you were expecting
because
it isn’t about dying or
about pain
or about abandonment
or about all the hurt love can bring.
Katy,
thank you for being the
brilliant,
singular
beam of light that punches through
walls of darkness,
that heals my heart
and extinguishes the fires of self-loathing.
I am so lucky I didn’t even realize it.
I am so lucky I can’t understand it because there is no
material analogue to how I feel.
One day I will be able to show you how I feel
and have it make sense.
Until then, however, I hope this poem will do,
because it could be a long time.
