I Will Not Wait For You

By

I will not wait for the text message to come. The one that will say that you miss me, that you want to see me. The one that says that you need me. Just precisely at the moment when I started to smile on my own.

I will not wait to see you. To spot that look in your eye when you remember. Your hand with the drink in it will dip, just enough for me to notice. You’ll spill a little on your expensive leather shoes, but it’ll be regret that drowns you.

I will not wait for you to show up at my door. Begging and pleading for a chance whose count I cannot remember. How many times did you not accept the same misbegotten plea when I was the one trying so hard to keep you?

I will not wait for you to let it sink in. To let in teem and flood your mind that it was a mistake to let me go so easily. To let it melt your heart until you realize that you are empty without me. 

I will not wait for the moment that you are lonely. When you need not just any comfort, but the comfort of the one that got away. The one that you pushed when you should have pulled. The one who knew how to connect the freckles on your skin better than you do.

I will not wait for the phone call that comes at 3am. The one that makes whiskey do it. The one that pulls bland apologies for the sordid mistakes that you’ve made before out of a tainted voice. When the bottom of the glass finally makes you look at your reflection.

I will not wait for day that the sun will rise above you, but you still feel gray and drab inside. The day that you grasp that there will always be something missing. I gamble on knowing just what that will be.

I will not wait for the afterthought when someone else didn’t meet your expectations. When you realize that what you had, you could not get from somewhere else. I will not wait for your appreciation out of the utter lack of someone else’s arms.

I will not wait for you. I will not wait another moment, another second, or another breath. I will go on and rise from unrequited love’s ashes as the brightest flame that shall repel any darkness.

I will not wait for you. I will find love for myself before I find it in someone else. I will prove to the world that I deserve exactly what I gave you. That someone out there will hold my heart as tightly and gently as I held yours.

I will not wait for you. I will succeed. I will prevail. I will leave a legacy, one of happiness and hope that could only begin after being broken, and a story to inspire even the most desperate of heartbreaks.

I will not wait for you. I will conquer my dreams. I will explore the world outside my previously feverish door. I will find myself in places I didn’t know to look. I will battle with my fears and I will win. I will discover new strengths in the most unlikely of spaces.

I will move with jaunty poise. I will live with veracity and grace. I will dream with risk right by my side. I will fall asleep with happiness on my pillow. I will live, sincerely. But mostly, I will love again.

But I will not wait for you.

featured image – Leanne Surfleet