Poem: Extrañar

I just got a comment on my blog from someone I don't know and didn't personally refer to the site. It is my first indication that someone out in the void is actually reading my words. I'm not sure if that makes me nervous, excited, or proud, or maybe a combination of all three. Either way, it felt pretty good! It's amazing how just seeing the words "1 Comment" can bring a smile to my face; am I too eager for acknowledgment, for an audience, for recognition? Or maybe I'm reading more into this than necessary, as usual. Forget it; I'm going to ignore my own proclivities towards self-doubt and just enjoy the moment.

On that note, here is a poem I wrote upon the dissolution of yet another relationship several years ago. Before I met my husband, of course. I seem to have my inspirational moments during periods of pain or suffering; perhaps I need to change that pattern so that I can write now, as well as when times are tough.

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"Extrañar: To find strange, to be surprised, to miss (someone)..."

in the space between loving and being loved
is a darkness more real to me than light
an absence more certain than the company of others
for you are gone,
your heart has fled mine
and will not return.

i suppose i shouldn't be surprised, this time,
but i am.
again.

te extraño
te extraño
¡te extraño!

it does not matter if i whisper it
or scream it from the doorway,
you will not hear me
you will not
and so it drones inside my head
for my ears alone

te extraño.

you have chosen another path,
to make sure you don't miss anything
before settling down.

strange, but i've been thinking lately
that the one thing i don't want to miss
is settling down,
settling into someone
curving my body around a lover
braiding my life into another's
building a future with a partner
beginning a story with the one
who will sit beside me at our ending, as well.

but i guess we're different, you and i
and so it goes
me, here
floating in this abyss
and yet... somewhere in the darkness
is the knowledge that one day
I WILL LOVE
and be loved in return,
passionately and with whole heart,
while you desperately fly from flower to flower
eager to sample as many as you can
before the sun goes down,
leaving you sated, for the moment,
and alone.