A String.

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It's always ourself we find in the sea."

-ee Cummings.

So it comes to an ending, as I suppose all things must.

After the most lovely 10 days,

It is back to school.

How I will manage these next nine weeks

Is still wholly open for debate.

I am open to suggestions

On how to maintain my full sanity.

On a heavier note,

Does it somehow fail to reach you

That I do not want to teach?

That what I love is not going to

Reap a particularly healthy income?

Do you listen when I talk about what

I do? What I love?

Is it truly so foreign to you that I

Write?

And you say "What are you going to do?

Sit around and write poetry?"

Well, in an ideal world, yes.

That's precisely what I'd do.

(If I was better at it, that is.)

It hurts, it's this deep, slashing, gushing wound

In my small and breaking heart when you say

These things to me.

It hurts so horribly bad to know

That I will never be what you expected,

That I will never do what I love so much.

Often, I stifle such a pain

With poetry.

I write and bleed crimson love letters

And torments and insufficiencies into

Flowing stanzas.

It is the only thing I know how to do.

It makes such beautiful sense.

The only safe haven I can find

Is going to destroy me so slowly.

It's a slow bleed,

Like a papercut.

Small, but feisty.

I truly think there are few

People in this very large world

Who understand how much this art

Means to me.

I would be a starving artist if it meant

I could throw myself so deeply

Into this art.

If I could only give myself fully

To the language.

But there are expectations to be upheld.

And perhaps, someday you will respect

Art the same way you respect any other occupation.

Perhaps someday I will submerge myself

In this perfect thing.

But first, I must improve,

I must work very hard

And prove myself.

There are thresholds to be crossed

To become a poet.

One cannot simply write,

One has to go deeper than that.

I must get there.

I will dig as deep as I must,

I will sail as far as I must,

To become this pinnacle of being.

You, my dear,

I think you may understand this.

Somedays you read and there is a glimmer

Of true understanding in your blue eyes.

Somedays, I know you get it.

You give so much encouragement,

And yet there is nothing I can give in return.

Your words and glances and your sometimes-whispers

Mean more than you know.

But I cannot repay you,

At least, not now.

Your understanding

Is a most lovely lighthouse.

Someday,

I swear, we shall all know what we are.

Deep inside of us is nestled a little note in a bottle,

And we must all work very hard to unlodge the cork

And retrieve ourselves from the little bottle.

Sometimes it takes our whole life.

But others know, and so they must

Work to let their own selves be free.

I want to be free.