in another world

in another world
i’d have married you
he said
and it’s hard
not to say i love you
at the end of every call
because
i do

in the quiet after
my heart stopped
i whispered
thank you
for this gift
of grace
given so late
with perfect timing

it’s been hard
not to say i love you
because
i do

Last week I was visited by grace. Someone I have loved in my (more recent) past opened up in a way that took my breath away.

I hadn’t dared to hope the feelings could be so deeply reciprocal. Also, there is an age gap, and the fact that he might have been willing to take a risk to be with me—a risk I wouldn’t have asked him to take—has touched and surprised me (and isn’t risk-taking one of the sexiest masculine qualities?).

It was too soon, though, to say these things then, and we were separated by geography and other factors. At the time, we just needed each other’s medicine.

This poem honours the bittersweet truth that some gifts arrive late, yet exactly when they’re meant to. This is why I value patience, though I still wrestle with the pain of waiting—they are very different experiences.

This isn’t about external validation. It’s about healing something relational, through relating with another. It’s about coming to an integrated sense of worth (something I couldn’t have had in my 20s and 30s).

I think these opportunities are quite rare. Most things are left unsaid. Most of the time, we have to muddle through life and find resolution within ourselves, without the other person.

A friend asked me how I feel, and if I have regrets. No. I am a person with a huge capacity for complexity. I’m a poet. 🙂 And when I do meet the right person(s), I’ll arrive not with baggage, but rich with layers of love, in part thanks to this (right) person.

PHOTO: MOONSTONE IMAGES