#178

What if I left after graduation?
What if I never made it impossible to find me?
What if I did better then?

What if I pursued a different career?
Instead of sooty and grimy,
I'd be holding a pen.
Instead of work clothes,
I'd be wearing choking suits,
so elegant, tidy, clean, dignified.
Instead of my back arched and soaked in sweat,
I'd be at a desk, working through papers and files.
Instead of sleepless nights,
wondering what kind of life I'd be living,
all the while writing stories and poetry,
I'd be dreaming and sometimes reading books for leisure.

What if all this made me happy?
What if it did not?

What if—
Would I still be me?
Would I be happy?

What if I—
were braver?
More courageous—
more in love.

Would I have confessed,
instead of falling over and over
into a scene made hopeless,
as the romantic that I am?

I wonder how—
maybe she's better off without me.

Although I can't say the same for me.

What if I did better?

But all these what-ifs are truly too late,
just me engaging in wishful thinking.

I wish I was the better—

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