Waiting

When I was in college, I was always waiting for life to start. I wanted to feel something, anything.

Aside from the dull passion stirred by the stooped professor on the stage at Bader Theatre gesturing to the significance of epithets in the Odyssey.

Aside from the agony of just sitting next to the cute boy with round glasses and dimples that interrupted the smooth surface of his buttery skin and left a mark on me that made me want to make him smile again.

Aside from the interrupted monotony of St. George to Downsview to St. George to Sheppard West.

***

Today, 23, sitting on the floor of my shared 620 square foot apartment with the heat off and French toast on the stove. Life will rage on as it was just beginning to back when I was eighteen.

Only now, I’m no longer waiting.

Only now, I can’t hold my arms open with careless abandon to what may be.

Now, only my arms hold me close. And with nightfall come no longer swells of thoughts of what may be but rather riptides of recognition of could haves.

***

Still, dimples I don’t have continue to make me smile and words I don't understand keep me believing in the beautiful.

Until those dimples become just a stranger’s scars and my favourite books are just words on a page, that must be enough for me.