POETRY: 'William Tell' by Ana Hagins

Denial as a means of mental survival

can only last for so long

before you realize its true oppression.

I constantly fight myself,

thinking of how I feel

versus what I feel.

I shouldn’t miss you,

but I do.

I tell myself that the feeling isn’t there

…but now that I think about it…

it isn’t.

I don’t miss you;

I miss what you could have been.

Irony is such a brain teaser

because I miss what was never there.

You were never there,

and I wanted you

but not the you that was already there.

I wanted the you that I needed

but apparently couldn’t have

because that you didn’t exist.

So I got what was

instead of what could have been,

or did I miss it?

No, you missed it.

I sat there with a target over my heart

and you missed it,

William Tell.

So tell me,

will you,

how a person so close can be so far off.

It seems so irrelevant

because you weren’t who I needed you to be,

 but it’s so important

because now I know you aren’t the one for me.

 People talk about how people go through some type of metamorphosis,

but I have never met a more stationary brother than this

one right here.

 I have stunted my growth

just to stay down with you.

So nothing ever changed.

But I want some type of metamorphosis;

I need more than this.

Holding you down means that

I have to stay down

because you refuse to stand up

and be a man.

I want more than the you that you’re giving me.

Call it greed,

but I call it settling for less.  

You have to do better.

Better yet, I should aim higher,

William Tell.

For so long

I told myself that I was moving too fast for you,

but I have taken more than enough time.

I took time

to make time

so you could stand still.

You told me I was moving too slow.

 How could I be moving too slow

when you’re not moving?

That’s how the turtle won the race.

I don’t need you,

but without you I probably wouldn’t have realized it.

So tell me,

will you,

how can I need your potential and not love you?

I want what I need,

and I need what I want;

there’s no way to separate the two,

One.

It’s like trying to kill two birds with one stone,

but you just cannot miss,

William Tell.