lately

by

Lately I've been sad a lot, and mad, and on good days it is only one, and just for the briefest moment, but some days it is both, and for unnerving stretches. This confuses me and scares me; I don't really know who I am if I am not completely happy. I wonder if unhappiness always stems from some highly unrealistic set of expectations, which in turn stems from some sort of ungratefulness. I don't want to be ungrateful.

 I know this, I always have: that loneliness has a quiet beauty resting in its nooks and crannies, that eventually sadness and anger and confusion and fear all peter out somehow, that all I have to do is wait—for a person or a time or a place or a chance. Even when I don't want to, all I have to do is wait.

 "I am setting the table with bread and grace/ my knees are bent/ 
like the corner of a page/ I am saving your place." —Andrea Gibson