THE GIFTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING
What I’d Like to Tell You
and the awkwardness of needing to hear it
WHAT I’D LIKE TO TELL YOU
I would like to sit with you at a table,
hands fidgeting with the mugs, the
steam softly rises, then dissipates before
it can obscure your face so I would have
to look you in the eyes and say You
are enough. And before you can protest,
littering the table’s surface with cascading
excuses, piling like leaves, a mess so distracting
it draws all the eyes in the room, I would say it
again “You are enough.” These excuses
now pile up on the inside, so I’d have to say it
one more time to be heard: You are enough.
You’d mistake this for a thousand self-help books,
of course, so I would insist: this isn’t smoke
to distract you or the eternal sunshine of
useless optimism. I’m showering you with true
hope. I’d say You are enough because you
aren’t responsible for fixing the whole world alone.
You are doing your best. You are good.
It makes sense you wouldn’t believe me. I often
don’t. This flawed vessel, full of secret opinion;
unspoken loyalties tie my hands and spoken ones
seek to permanently bind them. What reason do
you have to trust me? None but this.
These are the words I need to hear.
I am enough.
I am enough.
Until I can believe them, too.
I am enough.
I am not responsible for fixing the whole world
alone. We are. Together. And I need you
by my side.
This gift of enough is our hope. Together
we are enough.
