Perfectly Ordinary

I’d like to be a poem.

Maybe not one everyone knows by heart, or one people read aloud. I could even be a poem written on the back of a receipt, forgotten between the pages of a book.

But I’d like someone to find it.

To read it once, then come back to it a few days later. To like one line while another remains unclear. To want to keep it without having to understand every word.

Maybe someone would read me at the wrong time and put me aside, and might have loved me if we’d met a few years later. Maybe someone would like me for a single sentence and forget everything else.

I’ve read people that way too.

I thought I knew some of them by heart, until they said something I’d never heard them say before, and I realised how much had remained out of my sight. There were others I only came to understand when there was no one left to tell.

That’s why I’d like someone to be curious about me.

To ask why I’m quiet when I usually talk so much. To notice when I smile to change the subject. To know I can talk about some things for hours, while others take me a long time to put into words.

And I’d like to be able to change my mind in front of them. To admit that I no longer feel the same way about something, to reconsider, or sometimes not even know what I want.

I wouldn’t want someone to remember me forever only as the person I was when we first met.

There are days when I’d be happy to be someone’s unpublished poem. One they keep in a drawer and never show anyone. Someone’s unspoken confession.

Still, when I say I’d like to be a poem even if no one knows how to read me, I know that’s not the whole truth.

I’d like someone to understand me.

For once, not to have to explain what I meant. To be allowed to be unfinished, badly written, with a few things crossed out.

And even more than that, I’d like to exist in someone’s life when there’s nothing particularly lovely about me.

For them to call me when something good happens. To argue with me and still want to talk afterwards. To tell me when something hurts, even when I don’t know how to help.

And one day, when I run out of beautiful words, when I’m tired, in a bad mood or perfectly ordinary, I’d like them not to think the poem has ended.

Maybe they’ll put the book down, come over and ask if I’d like a coffee.

I’d like that too.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.