WHAT I KNOW NOW

so, darling, this is what you've given me:
what I know is I can be what I want to be
today, tomorrows, even rewrite yesterday
because I'm strong, brave and fool-hardy

enough into this world to realize I CAN be
with nothing holding me down but just me
not genders, abilities, disabilities, you see
I've learned this much and more in my life

from being good friends, best friends, wife
enough from the success and heartbreaks
I know who's real and where are the fakes
who hold you down, suck you up, lift us up

I've been their friend, family, an employer
in years of feast, famine, few still pretend:
I've had them push me away, cling, binge
on what I was, had, might be, and can be

in hearty, fool, true, and those I'll-use-you
have been in my corner, stolen it from me
and in the end, there's you, in just us two
I find what's real, kind, love and romance

worth ALL endured to be given this chance
what I know now's been worth all the pain
and IF I can still claim you in the very end
I'd do it all again, my lover, my best friend

(c) 2003 Rennie Lorca

Bumps to a number of Blender poets who also inspired me this time -- thanks for the most recent reads ..... Rennie