It aches in my gut
when I think about
how you must be feeling.

Your wife left.
Your wife didn’t want you anymore.

Are you blaming yourself?
Have you been crying—
like you cried to me that day,
saying the pain was worse
than when you lost your brother?

Is it because I’m still alive?
Because the possibility
of something being done
still exists?

I wonder if there’s still hope for us.
If, in the future,
your prayers will be answered.

I admit—
I was shaken.
I always wanted you to be
the spiritual man,
my pastor, my leader,
the priest of our home.

But I learned
you were never that man.

It hurts—
because I left for that reason.
And now you wake
at three in the morning
to pray for us—
because you lost me.

I was valuable,
and I didn’t even know it myself.

Why did you come back into my life?
Look at the trouble you’re causing—
you’ve shaken all my edges,
as you would say.

I know you want me,
but I’ve been through a marriage.
I know what it means
to give yourself in a way
that maybe, in your idea of love,
doesn’t even exist yet.

Your love still feels liquid.
I need something solid,
real—
not imagined,
not illusory.

In the end,
I need you to change.
Because I have.

My standards are higher now.
Will you be able to reach them?

Sometimes I stop and think—
my God, what am I doing?

I tore away all the structures beneath me
and chose to walk on sand—
or on water.

Why?
Why?
Why put myself
in this place of despair,
this ache of uncertainty?

I could have stayed
right where I was
and everything
would have kept flowing.

Wouldn’t it?

Sometimes I look toward the horizon
and there is nothing—
only a line.

And it scares me.

Because nothing
can be just nothing,
or it can be everything.

And the line
can be just a line,
or it can be the beginning
of a journey—
not the arrival.

I don’t know why you showed up in my life.
Was it God’s test?
Satan’s trick?
The universe showing me
I wasn’t happy—
or that I’d never be satisfied
in that marriage?

I don’t want all the answers now.
I don’t think I even need them.

You touch me
and yes,
I melt for you.
But in other moments,
I don’t want you at all.

Something in me says
that even if you are
communicative, romantic,
and so much more—
and even if the cards say
we’re meant to work out—

I see you have much to grow.
And I wanted you grown already.

Maybe it’s because
I’ve already been through a marriage,
but I still want more from you.

You still need to be shaped.
Will it be me
who shapes you?

Hello, my dear—
it’s been a while.

We lost each other,
found each other,
but I was always here.

Looking back at what we wrote
reminded you
that a path was being built.

But you thought
it was already strong enough
to stand on its own.

Never.

The thing about having a home
is that you’ll always
need to care for it.

I’ve been thinking lately—
I don’t understand how it can be:
literature so full of ornate words,
classical music tangled in
odd notes and fractured rhythms,
bitter wine too dry for
an untrained palate,

and a forest—
dense with trees and shrubs,
all intertwined,
chaotic yet each in its own place.

At first, there is no beauty in these things.
You must train for it—
breathe deeply—
to see that in all this bitterness,
this strangeness,
this confusion,
there lies beauty.

Not beauty in itself,
but in the knowing—
that you must live through it
to move past the first impressions,
and reach that moment of enchantment
that steals your breath,
when your heart beats differently
because it has caught a treasure
most eyes would miss.

The bad wine turns good
once you swallow it.
The forest becomes a clearing
when you walk through it.
The symphony becomes melody
once you learn to respect
the time of things.

Yes—appreciation is
respecting the time of things.

Sometimes you must read a text
and let it settle into you.
Sometimes you must listen to music
and let the notes caress you
until your eyes fill with tears.
Sometimes you must taste
the “bad” wine
to dismantle your own walls.