This isn't really about Texas

Texas was everything I never thought it wasn’t.
If you can sort that sentence out –
get back to me and tell me what I just said, because I lost myself there.
I’ve been taken to a place in my heart this last two months
that I’ve pretty much avoided for the last four years.
and I really think that changed my perspective on everything I saw this weekend.
I’ve become sort of worn down I suppose.
I still don’t write love poems.
For anyone.
I hate to fall
I don’t care how great the way down could be
When you hit the ground at the end it’s so easy to break
I’ve gone by so long with no one that has caught my breath
That I've got sort of use to not breathing at all.

Last year I had a moment
And instance I’d never had before
I met a person I felt I could not let slip away
I could not let them walk out of my life without telling them
That they were simply beautiful
I suppose that opened a door of sorts
I’d never done that before –
Stopped someone – pulled them aside and said
“look, I don’t know what this is, but I don’t want to say goodbye to you”
And not once has that thought changed in my mind.
Even now. I feel the same about them
But it slowly became
An accepted space between what is
And what can’t really be.

I would never regret that moment
And am even a little happy I had the nerve to do such a crazy thing
I learned a valuable lesson in risk taking.
If someone walks into your life
And leaves you running their existence over in your head
Like a really great song lyric
Then maybe
Just maybe
You should tell them so.

I didn’t find true love and eternal happiness from my honesty
Nothing so Disney movie as that
But I did still end up with a friend I value
granted... a friendship
with a strange attraction that hangs in the air
The way incense smoke does
It’s beautiful and visible, real and solid
But is nothing you can hold in your hand.
Nothing you can capture and count on for anything more
Than the pattern in makes in the air.

If it ever catches fire for real,
It would be amazing,
But it’s doubtful, and I’d rather not
Stare into the smoke of something
I can’t ever touch.

and so my heart let go of that instance
in a lot of ways after that
And I've just walked though time
The way you might walk though a tunnel
Surrounded by beauty on all sides.
walking though looking at the ground so that I wouldn’t
Accidentally slip and fall...
...For anyone.
Two months ago I let myself
Look up from my feet and
Realized I had fallen
Somewhere along that path
And again
I was honest as could be
once I knew how I felt.
but would never give up the friendship
I do not regret giving my honesty to this person
Because they are incredible in every way
I would not trade our friendship for really anything
And would never want to let that go

Finding out you care so much for a person
That all that makes you happy – is to see them happy
Whether that be even seeing them with someone else
Is a great – weird feeling.
Letting them go and being perfectly alright with that
is an even weirder one

I left for Texas feeling rather free I suppose
And the last thing I expected was to
Trip all over again
And in the strangest way.
It seems for 4 years straight I met no one
That I felt I connected to
Now in a matter of one week (not even, Wednesday – Sunday)
I’ve been around 3 people
that make me loose all ability
to speak in complete sentences when I think of them
And yet there is nothing I can do about any of it
For the two I’ve explained above
Things are simply as they are.

And that is where my weekend was
I was ½ in one world and ½ in another
I was busy trying to pretend my family
Isn’t loosing another limb
And that my aunt isn’t going to disappear in a mater of weeks
That my Grandmother is fine
That my mother is alright
And that we’re all – just fine
I had my game face on
Working hard not to feel too down
Or to pull my teams mood down.
All this I’m sure made my weekend what it was
I know I was more sensitive to everything
That my heart was already ripped apart and beating in my hands
Before we even landed in Austin.
I called my father maybe 30 times from Texas
Not for me-
For him.
And if you knew my family
That says enough to what it is we’re all going though.
All this
And the histories we all brought back with us
from the past 3 years of this event
... that was all there
Like incense smoke patterns dancing to poetry

I was so caught in another world
that I barely noticed when
they started to talk to me.
I don’t know them well enough to call it anything other
Than simple admiration
But they caught my breath
And people have to do a lot for me to change my breathing pattern.
I’m thankful to have the time I had
And I have a genuine desire to
Find this person again so that can tell them
That with their humor
They saved me from tears more times than they will ever know this weekend
That by simply smiling and talking about
Something as silly as my love of stars, camping and penguins
that they took me away from the swirl of stress
that was twisting in my heart for just a few moments
They reminded me that amazing people are everywhere
And that friendship is worth it all
why I wasn’t more open with them about it all
may have been the wrong decision...
This may have been one more time
I should have spilled my mind
And let them know how I felt.
But there are some instances
That can’t be had

But with luck
I will keep this person as a friend for as long as I can.
and hope I will one day speak to them again
and let the same smile
race across my lips
simply because - they are.