I Want You to be Happy

I am not the bitter kind.

Not the one to hate you.

To fall into a teary weepy state at the thought of you happy.

Addendum: happy without me.

No.

In fact, I want you to be happy.

I want you to be happy so much.

So much so that sometimes I imagine coming to see your family.

Some little ramshackle house in the middle of a sprawling breathing explosive city.

You with your antique mind and constant fingers

Raising new daisy sunflower minds.

Having found some woman who could handle you.

Who could whisper you to sleep when your mind raced and ran.

Who could assure you of your goodness when you get in these moods that you seem to find so often.

Moods that tell you that you’re not worthy enough of the happiness and the joy that wormed its way into your life.

Someone to soothe your crazy hair and wild eyes.

Someone to be the anchor to your wayward adventuresome ship.

And I will be a lone wanderer.

I will be the ship without mooring because I do love you.

But I love you enough to know that I am not what you need.

I once was, but I am no longer.

So I will come and visit you

Whenever I blow through town.

Your wife will smile quietly and usher me to the spare room waiting.

She’ll say so good to see you with those kind soft eyes she uses on you.

And you’ll come in rip and roaring from the garden with little you upon your shoulders

And you’ll smile and place your boy upon the ground

And gather me up in your arms.

I will smile and breathe in the smell of your cotton shirt

And know that you are not mine.

I will laugh and joke and talk with your family.

Your children will sit upon my lap as I tell them tales of my adventures.

But then I will pack up.

I will leave and drive away.

And when I look in the rearview mirror I will cry.

I will cry not because I hate you.

Not because I am envious of your wife.

But because that’s who I could’ve been at one point.

I could’ve been that woman comforting you.

And I could’ve been the one holding you down when the hurricanes of your creativity sweep across you.

But that’s not who I am now.

I am more myself and I love that.

So no.

I do not cry when I think of our lives on separate tracks.

I do not wish you the worst or only pain.

I love you.

And in that it means I want the best for you.

And I know now,

That’s not me.