Tired from the endurements of life
I turn to a face vaguely familiar, looking for respite
For judgments galore in familiarity that breeds contempt
And keeping appearances disallows meaningful deviation
She looks up, startled, not ready for words bearing burden
Her eyes speak of her understanding to my dilemma
Her lips tremble with ‘why me’ ‘why now’
Her heartbeats leave the space between us with silence
She says she wishes to understand me further
And she wishes she was brave enough to wish for her wishes
But she waits, why, she knows not truly
She only waits and wishes for others to wish her wishes
Terrible way to live a life… I tell her it is
For most often left bereft she shall be
For the world knows not the desires of a single heart
And her unspoken words would never be heard amidst noise so
vast
‘Why,’ she asks, ‘can the world not understand her heart’s
desire’
‘Because,’ I say, ‘the world fears understanding her wrong’
So it does not attempt to understand her at all
The fear of rejection overpowers the possibility of the extraordinary
We would rather live diminished lives ourselves
than risk running fast and breaking something apart
Our hearts are fragile and we protect it at all costs
The ships we carry, stay on the docks
There are two types of people in the world
the “why nots” and
the “what ifs”
The “why nots”
stay fulfilled,
the “what ifs”
stay safe
The “why nots” are
daring, but often they fail
Their stories are what scare the “what ifs”
That the “what ifs” stay
safe, as most humans do
Thinking sometimes, being daring is simply being foolish
But
it is impossible to live without failing at something
unless you live so cautiously that you might as well
have not have lived at all
in which case you have failed by default
I ask her what is she
She says she would like to be a “why not”
but she is a “what if”
And mostly “it’s not
meant to be”
I ask her if she can move to “what if it’s meant to be”
Not so far away from where she is
She asks me what am I
I smile and say, I’m whatever she needs me to be
Vishal Gupta
June 11th, 2022
