we've all waited for something
or even someone at one point of our lives
there are a few kinds of waiting
we've all gone through

the wait we go through
while waiting for a bus, a train,
or even for the cake in the oven
to be done ,
for your favourite tv series,
for your best friend's birthday,
or your anniversary with your loved one
this is the kind of wait where we know
what we're waiting for will come to us
pain won't exist in the process of this wait
because we are sure that the wait will be over
sooner or later
dates of the days we marked down
on the calendar or
times of the days we set a reminder for
in our phones
they are constant and there forever

there's another kind of waiting
that we all have gone through too
at some parts of our lives
the kind of wait we go through while
waiting for our lives to get better,
or waiting for our loved ones
while they are fighting for
their lives in the emergency room,
or for the one you love who
left you a long time ago
to come back,
or for a second chance
this is the kind of wait
where no one knows when
will the waiting ever end
the kind of wait where it
might not even have an end
going through this breaks your heart
day by day
you start to question and wonder
when will this end?
will this even end?
even though not knowing of how
things might come to an end
we still wait like this because of
the hope we are still hanging onto,
holding onto for our lives because
if we were to ever let go,
we'd fall down and usually
the fall hurts

but what if,
what if the first kind of wait
turned into the second one?
what if,
your best friend never
makes it to her birthday
because all this time she
stayed up late was to
fight away her demons that
won her in the end
what if,
your anniversary no longer exists
because you found that
all the texts that read
"not coming home for dinner,
pulling an all-nighter in
the office to finish the assignments"
actually meant
"not coming home for dinner,
staying over in her house to finish what
we didn't last night"
you realize that
all the "i love you's" you've
ever told them in the
form of messages
were being read by them
on someone else's bed
or being read by someone else
who eventually deleted the text
after reading it
what if,
what you've been waiting for
never comes even when you were
so sure that it would?

in the process of waiting
the minutes,
hours, days, years
we spent waiting for what
we thought we knew would come
can turn into
hours, days and years
of the longest wait
for what we thought
we would never lose
and the days we marked down
on our calendars,
the times we set a reminder for
on our phones,
will still be constant
because the earth will still spin
in the direction
it always had

everything may still look
the same as it always was but
little do we know,
everything is slowly changing
and when we look back
we will realize how different
things actually were

time is a disability,
that blinds us from reality
time is a thief,
that takes away what's precious to us
time is a murderer,
killing us with each second we've
spent on waiting.

-a.l.