Domino

“And I’m confused,” I said. “So completely and utterly confused.”
It sucked, everybody. It fucking sucked.

If I have a question about who the 12th President was
I can look it up: Zachary Taylor.

If I need to know how many pints are in a quart
I can search that as well: two.

But you and your world are subjects I’ve studied
for years. Every word, every move, every kiss
is just two heartbeats too fast for Google to unlock.

And I wait.

And from morning to night and the blinks in my eyes,
the deep sighing breaths that I take when I hit a dead end,
and every moment that I know you’re out there, somewhere.
The thought of you not thinking about me makes me wish
I tried harder, tried less, tried at all.

And what I do—I wait.

Every second, every minute, every moment
that tide takes me out and when it brings me back
I’m not sure if I’m closer to the shore or if I’m that much
further from leaving everything I wanted to be
when I grew up.
As a child I rode my bike up and down the street.
I sped past parked cars and ramped over the neighbor’s
driveway and when I fell, time stopped. A broken shell
of fearlessness. I went from smiling and scab-free to
the world’s most helpless child in no time at all.
Because when you’re hurt, it doesn’t matter if you’re early
or late. Hurt doesn’t fit into your schedule—hurt calls you
breathless at three in the morning and tells you that you need
to go the hospital, right now.

But careful bike riders don’t win races.
And when you get older time doesn’t stop when you’re hurt.
It keeps going.
When you pull yourself together from the hardest goodbye
you’ve ever known you’re late for greatness.

And the same blood that pours from those wounds is pumped
through the same heart that loves her smile, that same heart
that has been broken.

Resiliency is in the wait.
For every answer I don’t know and every question I’ll ever ask
there is one truth:
There’s nothing you can do when you’re the next in line.
You’ve got to go, Domino.