The Symbol

I am thinking of you. Thoughts of you swim in my mind.

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I don't know why. Perhaps, I do know...

the answer is there; but I am unwilling to look, because once I look, and know...

I might lose this feeling when I think of you.
...

I am full of gratitude. I don't know if it comes from guilt...

Could gratitude come from guilt?

Oh yes, when it is only directed to you; forgetting me.

For which gratitude is genuine, except to myself?

Only when I acknowledge the appreciation of me, will there be genuine appreciation for you.

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So do I want to know? In some ways, I might; but in some other way, I don't.

I might lose this feeling, you see, when I think of you...

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My heart is bursting with expressions of love.

And these feelings are all associated with you... I think I love you. I know I love you.

But this, is only being rationalized in the mind – where ideas and concepts had conditioned the mind to conclude.

Is there a you? I do not know.

For if I did know, you'd disappear and these feelings would disappear with you.

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I want to let you go, and yet when I do; I am afraid I'd lose this feeling.

What if I never find it again? What if it is emptiness that fills the void?

But it is not right, for I now belong with another.

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If, and only if... I could love the one I am with, as much as I love you.

If, and only if, I could feel the similar gratitude towards the other, the way I feel for you...
...

I know who is the culprit – the thought of comparison, the idea of lack.

And yet, I am afraid to look;

Because if I did, I'd know that it was not you that I had missed, and it is not you that I am thinking about.

You are just a symbol. You are just a cast. You are just my scapegoat, albeit in a 'good' way for whatever that I feel, or I think I feel;

I know, they are not real.

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Yet, why do I not see? Because I don't want to see.

Because if I had seen, then I'd know that I am alone, and that there has never been another.

I would have to take responsibility,

for this emptiness inside, this loneliness inside.

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And, I know you love me too.

And I know, that in some instances, these feelings might have been overwhelming.

But you are wise, because you already know. I am but only a symbol, for you to find what you thought you had lacked.

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Do I practice what you practice? I could when I see you do;

And when you transcend me as a symbol, my sufferings remain for I think you had left me.

I would have no where else to hide, no where else to go...

because of that transcend, you decline the role of my scapegoat.

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But you had not left me, and I had not left you.

Then where am I? Which decade am I in?

It is only when I rely on you as a symbol, seeing an outside; only had you left me.

So I will take that step, that courageous step now...

so that you, could always be with me.. because you, the symbol, had always been within me.
...

First it would take that 'willingness' and then, that 'gradually'...

and then I'd come into the space, to reclaim and break the symbol you represent;

to be responsible, to be accountable;

to find out that there has never been emptiness, there has never been loneliness.

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There has always been Love,

and there has only been ME.

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This poem swam in my head this afternoon and took me approximately 10 minutes to pen it down.

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This inspiration surfaced from thinking of that someone, who had impact my life vastly, but gently.

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Thank you, that someone, I love you. Eventhough it is my own 'willingness' and 'gradually' -- you, in my space, had created that possibility for me to learn from you and various others, to transcend the many symbols in my life.

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Gratitude to you, and to me. Love, love, love... :)