There will come a time
Nokyoung Xayasane

There will come a time
when you won’t have to relive
everything that you’ve lost.
There will be a moment,
a moment
of blinding pain
when everything is so clear
and shining,
so vivid and magnified —
the sun breaking
through the clouds,
through the overhanging leaves
where you laid as a child.

Everything will be magnified
as it truly is,
people will be revealed
in their most beautiful
and in their most despicable light,
and the weight of their sorrows
and the strain on their anguished faces
will no longer hang upon you.
You will be so light
so light as a bird,
and you will be so free
so free as anything.

But before that, wait for it,
— the sorrow —
it will come.
It will hit you
like a wave —
blasé and expressionless.
And when that time comes,
you’ll recall all those days
when you were happy.

There was a gesture of someone’s hand
as it moved through the air,
waving to you from across the street.
There were those wind chimes
in the early morning light,
and that infectious laughter on the dancefloor
weaving its way through the crowd
to make it back to you,
and the music that played,
the sound
deep inside your chest.

There will be that bowl of congee
your mother made for you on your “sick days,”
and that bright red kimchi
and that apple green curry sauce.
There will be your dreams
of Laos, its demure and stunning beauty,
and those desert mountaintops of Ghana
and those rainforests in Brazil and Peru
alive with birdsong and the soft pattering
of raindrops falling.
There will be the purr of the cat
and the touch of the dog
and the look of the friend
who has been where you’ve been
and has seen her way to the end.

There will be that caress of someone’s hand
that means I understand
and I know
and it won’t last,
and you’ll remember
that this life keeps going
whether you’re laying in bed,
or soaking in the tub
with your head under water,
the sound of the faucet like
some distant rumbling thunder,
or you’re looking up at the stars,
and your eyes are filling
and your heart is bursting
with something you cannot name,
you’ll know this world keeps moving
and your pain is but a pinprick,
but a star among millions
blinking away into the night sky.