I Won’t Wait For Love

By

I won’t wait for love.
I’ll let it find me.
All consuming,
all the craziness
of want and desire and need.

No, I won’t wait for love.
I’ll find it.
In the creases of my palms,
the photographs on my dresser, the way the earth
feels soft and foreign underneath my bare feet.
I will find love in all the places I expect, and then some.
Hidden in the cracks of concrete, touches as soft as
brushstrokes on canvas, in the boy whose eyes
won’t meet mine, but tells his story with the soles of his shoes.

Too long I have thought love waits
at doorsteps, at bus stations, at answering machines
with no messages, phones that don’t ring.
I thought love was timid, hesitant.
I thought I was doing the world a favor by being patient,
by allowing things to come as they will. By letting feelings
waft over me, then pass, like ocean waves.

But I’m a Pisces. I’ve never been scared of water.

It’s never been a matter of if I will drown,
because I will, on purpose. But it’s when I will rise
like a mermaid, legs morphing into a tail, kicking,
mouth gasping. Yet ready to jump back in,
do it all over again. Headfirst,
scales slicing through skin.

No I won’t wait for love.
I’ll make it find me.
.
Like Ariel and her Prince.
But I’m trading feet for fins.
And diving back in.