The Long Wait

The Long Wait

For so many times nothing much changed in this house except for some artificial flowers that ceased to sustain life. The antique chairs and table, which have witnessed the changing of the seasons and the unpredictable weather, still stand as strong witnesses of a lost and forsaken love. The porch light clings strongly to the wall bright and proud. I used to keep it on while waiting for my brother when he is out for the night. Now, I’ve leave it open while waiting for a lost love to come home.

Every night, I sit here in the porch staring at the sky. It’s amazing to see how the darkness engulfs the light. I sit silently without a single trace of smile or anger in my face. The stars are starting to pattern out my fate but I still can’t fathom where it will take me. I just know it’s there, somewhere in the vast universe. Once, I saw a falling star. It happened so fast that I was not able to make my wish. I lost the chance to add another 'supernatural' force in my list of aids to make him come back to me. I convince myself that wishes don’t transpire with mere words. Then, just nod and agree. The clock radio announces that it’s late for me to stay out. Well, tomorrow will be another day.

I am back again with the porch light and the sweet kissing of the night. The dog is barking! A sign. It always gives my heart a spark of hope that someone is outside the door…it might be him. My heart is beating faster now. I tell myself that the eleventh hour miracle is coming true. I have the teary-eyed smile. But the shadow walks on without ever glancing at me. It’s not him but some passersby who are just living their own lives. For a moment, I stop waiting for the person. I hang around for the time to come that I will be sitting and waiting in this porch no more. I often ask myself, 'is this what it’s like to live?'.

It’s a cold night. Just as I’ve expected, the weather from the skies start to answer my dire need of the thirsty ground. With the pouring of the rain comes also the downpour of grief that I have been keeping since his leaving. I cried. The floods have not only drowned him but his feelings for me as well. He became indifferent in the melee of change, and perhaps hen all the dust has settled I look around and see that I’m neither in each other’s lives.

The porch light seems dim tonight. I ask myself some mandatory questions. But again I lie to myself. I’d rather not break the fragile glass of the past with its old face bringing back everything from then to now. The lizards by the porch light became a surprise. Finally, somebody or something sympathizes with my waiting. They stayed just long enough to become uncommon but not unfamiliar. The angel of sleep blessed hours, oblivion sets in.

Here begins another day of lost logic. Now forsaken, due to an overwhelming state when two plus two no longer equals to four because love doesn’t speak the language of the concrete. It understands the abstract of contradictions and oxymoron living side by side. Love and pain are often times the same thing. Two plus two can equal any number you want, you just have to believe.

After all the formalities of a new day, I am back on the porch again. Perhaps the Siberian wind carries his perfume in the air, and if I stay long enough, I can smell it and when I close my eyes I’ll feel his presence. In any case, I spend countless hours watching the day becomes night in the porch too closely associated with him. I just

wait here waiting for something to change. But change scares me even if there is good reason for it to occur.

With sadness racing through my veins at each light, it would not let me forget, it wouldn’t let me think of anything else but him. Every little victory was at the feet of this pain that carried a face and body. And time was running out for me. I’m lost, scatterbrained looking for something to soothe this intense rug burn on my heart.

I could argue about things trite and things but ultimately I have no control in how my feelings bring him back. I spend hours retracing steps in hopes he would see where I am now, perhaps then he might know that I’m still in the porch with the bright porch light waiting for him.

The porch light will dim and soon the trees will die, the lizards will be tired of catching flies but I’ll always be here waiting for him. I must forget. I must become indifferent and uncaring as a stranger. Not because I want to, but because I have nothing left. I don’t want to think he left me. I never stopped him from walking away from me because I know that he would find his way back, if he comes back, if he truly loves me. If he comes back, then I’ll be restless no more for I know I’m the one whom he wants to spend the rest of his life with. But before this longing becomes a reality, I keep the porch light on. Waiting…waiting for something to happen.

Neither reason nor circumstances will ever dictate when I’ll turn the porch light off. With every breathe of air and smoke, with every mockery of the clock showing me every second of waiting, with every spark of memory in my head, I sit here in the porch with the porch light on waiting for him to come back.

I know something will happen, and when it does the porch light and I will be waiting for him. But if nothing happens, the porch light will still be waiting for him. I’ll create a portrait of his memories with still beautiful imagery, but only with things that do not have those bittersweet memories. I hope everything for him. The porch and the porch light will be forever locked as a memory and mute witness of my waiting for him.

The future? I don’t know, but I’ve already begun it. In presence, in absence, in memory of love, it’s all just waiting for me to realize that I don’t have to wait at all. In all the complaining of loss, I was in love the whole time anyway. And when I’m in love, I am never defeated, no matter what they say.