"If"

"If," ...
What a useless word!
A ticket to an eternal preoccupation with the past -
and with how it could have been...
It was the way it was...
It is the way it is... And that is that...
We make the choices we have to make...
Yes, we may look back and realize...
how wrong or foolish we were to have taken the route we did...
but the fact remains we can only make today's choices...
with today's information, wisdom, and providence...
I realize all this now - but heaven alone knows..
how I have stretched the tape of my mind's eye...
rewinding and re-playing those last few conversations...
re-reading those last letters...
imagining what would have happened if....

I had not stop myself from running to you...
and ask you not to easily give up...
and tell you the words that choke me still...
Would it have made a difference if I had?

I have become a firm believer that nothing happens by chance...
Do you remember that basketball game...
when you made that winning shot...
and told me that it was for me...
that was the sweetest memory I ever had in my whole life...
But because of my unknowingly mistakes you disappeared...
What a cruel destiny...
I wonder how many people realized...
how deep the water I had landed in was...
Perhaps I was drowning...
For months I have stood mummy-like...
Can I go on?
Would it make a difference?
I've struggled to find satisfaction in a world of unshared pleasures...
Yes, I have shared many things with many people -
but my soul has always ached for you...



~Anonymous~