I wrote a poem about 2 years ago after beginning to realize that I was having feelings for a woman that didn’t feel the same. I was reminded of the poem with recent events in my dating life. However, my recent participation in The Landmark Forum really opened my eyes to how much we live into our past rather than living into our future. I rewrote the poem into a better version. Here is the original and the rewrite:

This feeling is bitter sweet
It’s sweet in lust, in love, in dreams fulfilled
in bliss and excitement and the energy that builds
It’s sweet

The wonder and excitement it brings out in me,
Feelings long buried by time, by life, by need.
So like a kid, I swim in this sea.
It’s sweet

It has another side that sneaks up on youth.
But I see it coming, this time I know the truth.
This feeling is fleeting, it’s doomed from the start.
Usually finished with the breaking of a heart
It’s bitter

So I ride this elation that’s engulfing me.
A wave of possibilities of what I know cannot be.
I’m floating, excited, released, set free,
while knowing the fate that’s waiting for me.
It’s bitter

And so I stumble forward dazed but aware
that I must seek some middle ground if I dare
Or risk losing myself in a sea of dispair.
This feeling so longed for, so welcome, so fair.
It’s bitter sweet.

I think by writing and speaking that, I may have brought it into being and I have lived it a few times since then. That is a future based on the past. Here is a future, independent of the past and open to possibilities:

This feeling of possibilities
Is washing over me
Wave after wave
Of what I know could be

Not hope or a wish
But a new way of being
The future is open
There are changes I’m seeing

No more feelings of knowing
A future based on the past
No more bitter sweet notions
That emotions won’t last

A future to live into
A present to own
Full of possibilities and wonder
With outcomes unknown

So I live in the moment
And make a clearing for more
For a future of our own making
With miracles in store

“The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!”