Laura Marcoux

There was a lesson you were supposed to learn but didn’t. 
You’ve been addicted to searching and calling it commitment.
Calling it “at least I’m not complacent” 
Calling it “getting ahead”
But you need time on your side, not at your back. 
It’s not what you’re working for 
It’s what you’re working against.
But you don’t have to.
 
You think you can get there early 
But you’re out of breath and out of tune. 
You’ve been running all afternoon and all through the night. 
You’ve been keeping your dreams just up ahead.
Addicted to waiting and calling it “being prepared”
Calling it running 
Calling it the one thing you can control.
But it isn’t.  

You wish you would have started by now 
As if now were an end date. 
Now is a first date you can’t show up early to.
You can’t even get there in time.
It doesn’t take credit cards or advanced payments
But it will accept certain lyrical arrangements 
It won’t ask you to change but
Time is a wishing well.
And wish is the sound the wind makes 
When it exhales. 

Listening is a meeting place
In the shoreless ocean.
 
You don’t have to be patient but you do have to become one
A patient that is - someone who is receiving care 
Someone who doesn’t wait to breathe in 
That silky autumn air
So put your things down. 
You’re not going anywhere.

You’re in this rehab center 
That you didn’t pay for
And you can never pay back. 
You can only sing to:

Great Mother Water 
Teach me how to land
How to build a home here and 
How to let go of my need to understand
Why time flies 
and when it doesn’t.
How the river runs by
But its not going anywhere. 

I am a mediocre painter.
I’m still learning how to sing. 
How to be still here 
And let my dreams catch up to me
While the gentle breeze
Wishes by
I am receiving care
On an inhale 
And a belated prayer.