M.L. Pab

Patience is something 

I’ve always wanted 

But never had 

Trained for it

Hurried up 

And waited 

And waited 

Any time

I’ve tried to be patient 

I’ve always been let down

What’s the point?

People disappoint 

Events disappoint 

Surprises disappoint 

They taught us to be patient 

And to move with urgency 

It sounded like an oxymoron 

And felt like one too

They said 

“You don’t have an ounce of urgency

In your whole damn body”

So that’s what stuck 

Everyone else can be late 

But I can’t

Everyone else can wait 

But I can’t 

Maybe one day I’ll stop checking the clocks

Or if my car is locked 

Or if the windows were closed when I left 

And the lights were off 

Maybe one day I’ll say 

“See you later” without adding anything to my calendar 

But still meaning it

Maybe one day I’ll be able to accept gifts 

Without feeling like I owe 

Maybe one day I’ll be able to leave the house

Without checking the traffic report 

10 minutes before leaving

An hour before leaving 

And the morning of 

Maybe one day I’ll be able to wait 

With high expectations that are met 

They told me to plan for the worst and expect the least

And I carried that with me 

Until it killed me

Free Verse

watching the big bang

you said it was "way too cringe"

I still sleep at night

Haiku

one night was the last

night I saw you and never

spoke with you again

we had not known it then but

I doubted you'd want to know 

Tanka

My skin

was blue the night

I left, and the next night

until the skin wasn't anymore

It healed

Cinquain

Coming home from a 16 hour day

Already knowing that you’d ask for my phone

Maybe today it’ll be my location history, Instagram DMs, recently deleted

E-mails from my spam folder when my address was in that data breach

Last year, or maybe the one before

Cause things quickly got worse, violent and dangerous

Running out of our apartment 

Until you’d say you changed, which you hadn’t

Said sorry, which you weren’t

Here I am, still buying the cigarettes we smoked so long ago, the only thing you left me with

Because everything else was gone, my truck, my credit score, my sanity 

Love doesn’t shout, bully, or throw knives

Until you were finally gone, I couldn’t grasp that 

Everything you ever wanted was mine, and all I have left are these crappy menthols

Acrostic