Anonymous

I don't know who wrote this. And I hope they don't mind me publishing it, but it's the best birthday present I've ever gotten. And I want them to know how thankful I am.

"I'm sorta interested in everything"
You had me at that: five words. 
I was hooked, and terrified; more so in five words from you than in thousands from Hemingway 
It started there, and got worse.
Soon, it was hard being around you; like the shock of an icy stream, 
I spent a lot of time frozen. 
I did get to make you laugh (you're good at it)
before you slipped away along the edges of the calendar. 
But by then I'd found this place; 
of beauty, of love, of dreams, of space. 
I couldn't tell if I was crazy, or crazy lucky. 
Still can't. 


You live out loud; and you make a joyful noise 
that's music to the part of me that can't see pain, and can't work odds. 
Feeling for you challenged me to understand: why?
Why you? 
Well, because. 
Because you had adventure in your heart. And stories on your lips. 
And because you were interested in everything. 
And because you were cute. 
Still are. 


You were gone; to the far corners of the distant horizon. 
But it was only when I saw you find love that I walked away. 
I've always been good at letting go, just bad at deciding when.
And when I saw you suffering, I came back;
I knew you needed the misery to learn how strong you were, 
so the comment above was all I could do.


And then someone else found you.
Someone who was there to say to your face
the things that I could barely think to it. 
And I'm grateful. I suffered, and it made me understand:
life's opportunities come and go. 
And I stick around all the same; 
and so does most of what I love most.
And again, I walked away. Out of mind; into the past, at peace.
A breathing, beautiful lesson in facing down my fears, taking loss without bitterness, in relishing the good things, and in moving on. 


You were that. 


And then you kept writing. 


I saw how you cared, and how you struggled. 
I saw more, and I was caught. 
Caught in your songs, in your poems, in the thousand ways you spoke to the little things that fill my world with splendor. 
I used to think less of moths near the fire. 
But the light you shed, I couldn't help but seek; karma, I guess. 
And the whole while, some part of me wouldn't stop suffering 
for something that had nothing to do with me,
and everything to do with you and someone who might have been a better man. 
But it was this that finally taught me that fear happens when we think we have something to lose. 
And that there's nothing as liberating as being forced to see that in this brief instant between two silences, we really don't have as much to lose as we fear. 


It might have ended there, too, if not for that goddamn poem. 
Four lines at first. 
Then more. 
I didn't know who you were talking to. 
Just that I was willing to risk the painful answer to find out.
Which seems to be a theme for life's important questions. 
Kind of shitty, really. 
But I don't know if it could, or should, work any other way. 
Even the stars need the dark to stand out. 


I can see, now, the layers between the shadows and the light, 
and the flickering summer branches, gently shivering sights.
I've inherited the world's simple treasures. 
I long for pinnacles and trails with no name,
and bobbing fields just high enough to lose your head, 
and the sound of music when you close your eyes. 
After a life of questions, I've given up on needing every answer. 
I know what I want, and why I want it. 


Starting with the part of me that wrote this. 
The part of me that keeps looking over at your seat in the row, that still wants to travel. 
Still hopes we might spark in the cold, fascinating stranger, and perhaps even find ourselves warm. 


And now that you know,
I can finally just let it be; 
in the past, in the future, 
in peace. 


Happy birthday Sam. No matter what happens next, I'm glad that I got to meet you, and to live this thing.