Waiting

I have seen thousands of beautiful things

But only the ugly has ever felt real

Some nights I dream of Niagra Falls like

I am more than a floodgate waiting to break

Face-first towards the bottoms of hotel pools

Convincing myself in the way we try to dream with eyes open

Then I would learn to soar before

Rock bottom broke my bones

This world is marked by seven wonders
and seven billion broken hearts,
each playing cat’s cradle with fraying ties
and praying that perfect comes to those
who wait and wait and wait.
I grow an ounce more impatient
each time my toes touch the scale.

I drink for the aftertaste,
the bitter notes I can’t define and
the feeling I’ll get in seventeen years when
I hear tonight’s song on the oldies station
and convince myself in the way we try
to drown when we are swimming
that it’s stuck in my head and
far too pretty to escape.

Maybe in seventeen years I’ll sleep easy

And skip rocks across water with lights in my eyes

And a flick in my wrist to say swim

Maybe I’ll have learned by then

That it’s lovely to search for perfection

In the way children play midday hide and seek

And pretend it is more than a game

Maybe I will find myself

If I wait and wait and wait

Within the past month, the amount of job applications that I've submitted is almost astounding to me and now I'm in the phase of simply waiting for a reply. And literally it's driving me insane. I'm one of those people who really likes to plan ahead and know what's going on all the time so I can be prepared. And I'm sure we have all experienced this feeling. Waiting for a college acceptance, waiting for a job, waiting for Friday to come, waiting for summer break, waiting for an opportunity, waiting for "the one."

And it's just so damn easy to slip into wanting to give up. Many times have I thought of giving up on school work, giving up on people, giving up on life. But these are not good options, let me tell you. As dreadful as sitting in anticipation, getting worked up and depressed about a situation doesn't make you feel better about the situation or about yourself. When treading across the ocean, it's not an easy decision to choose to drown, that's not what I'm saying. But to be able to get what you want, to get what you deserve, to get what you've been working for, then you gotta keep on keeping on and swim harder, even if it means swimming in a different direction towards a different goal. 

Let me get off my soap box, sorry. 

This poem does have a lot of water motifs as you probably noticed. I'm from Maine and the ocean and water is a big part of my life and I really love it. During a storm, the ocean is always really rough and yet there are always a few surfers out there making the best of it. Plus after the storm, the water is so clear, so beautiful. Plus there's a bunch of shells and sea glass that you can then collect. There's also quite a bit of my childhood in here, especially the times with my sister. Whenever we go to dance competitions  we swam in the hotel pools with the other dancers and it was always really fun. Me and my sister also learned how to do cat's cradle so that we can do it with our eyes closed. We also really like listening to the oldies station: her favorite artist is Frank Sinatra (yeah, she's super classy for a 13 year old). She's one of my reasons why I keep on keepin' on, and everyone should have that. I think I might call her this weekend, I do miss her so.

I didn't mean for this to be so long and I doubt anyone has read all the way to the end. But if you have, thank you for listening to my rambling. Til next time. Godspeed. ~Sarah