Dear Paul

Paul warned of men, and I searched the world for them, Counting every fault I found, assigning every blame. Yet each accusation sharpened what I could not bear to see; The blade I raised against the world was turning back on me. Paul warned of men, and I searched the world for them, Never thinking that the warning might be knocking from within.

I called it growth whenever I outgrew my place, Yet every height I conquered left me reaching into space. I thought I sought a future my present couldn't give, But how much of my ambition is an unwillingness to live? If I cannot love the man I am today, What makes me think tomorrow will take that ache away?

There was a time when little felt like plenty, When hope alone could keep the dark at bay. Now I possess the things I once called heaven, Yet barely pause to thank the dawn for day. What cruel alchemy has altered what I treasure, That answered prayers now measure what I lack?

I once mistook the hunger for a sign that I was made for more, And called each open doorway proof there must be something beyond the door. But every room I enter loses something of its light, And what I longed for yesterday grows ordinary overnight. Am I in love with what awaits me, or the ache of reaching there? Have I made a home of wanting, with no room left for contentment there?

I count the things I'm grateful for, then count what I have missed, As though the hand that gives to me has somehow closed its fist. I tell myself I'm thankful, and perhaps I truly am, Yet still I watch the distant shore while standing on my land. What contradiction lives in me, that gratitude and grief coexist, That I can hold what once I prayed for and still mourn what doesn't exist?

Perhaps I'm scared of stillness, of what silence might reveal, Of meeting the man beneath the plans, with nothing left to build. For who am I without the chase, the promise of what's next? What remains when all the striving leaves no purpose to protect? If I lay my dreams beside me and let the evening pass, Will I find the peace I've searched for, or the emptiness beneath the mask?

I keep postponing peace until I've made enough, As though the road will soften when I've climbed far enough. But what if all these tomorrows become the years I've spent, And I reach the end still searching for the life I never lived? I've spent so long becoming what I thought I had to be, That I scarcely know the man who waits beneath the dream. If I finally find the life for which I've spent my years, Will I know that I have found it, or just find another frontier?