photo and collage by jdb

Waiting for the Rest of Her Life

She has faith in the future that her life will fit.
She sits at home patiently, planning on it.
But as she sits waiting for the rest of her life,
the fear it won’t happen cuts like a knife.
As day after day goes by in a whirr,
she’s starting to realize it might not occur.

Her little white dog lies curled up beside her,
but stroking his coat won’t relieve what’s inside her.
She’s yearning for something­–she’s not quite sure what.
Inside her, the want of it roils in her gut,
then digs itself deeper into her soul.
It’s like playing a game where she can’t find the goal.

In every city, far up, looking down,
there are folks in tall buildings, surveying the town—
every alley and walkway for as far as they can
eyes staring out as they survey and pan
the small world below them that must have an answer
to this life that’s consuming them like a slow cancer.

I want to tell them that love can’t find you.
You must lean yourself over and pick up a shoe.
Put it on, then the other one. Walk out the door.
Waiting’s not what life was intended for.
We were pushed into life at the time of our birth,
and life goes on pushing all over the earth.

So all of you people with all of your faces
behind all these windows in all of these places,
Give up your pining and wishing and hoping.
No happiness lies in all of this coping.
Go find your soulmate, no matter the weather,
and then you can spend your life waiting together.

The prompt word today was “waiting.”