What If I Say

by allisonkujiraoka

What if I say it’ll all be okay?

Will that settle accounts with God and man for today?

Make your slumber deep,

keep mind and body free while you sleep?

Will mere sentiment make a dent

in the brittle, anxious thoughts,

sand them down and insist that they submit?

What do you need to hear right now—

that everything will be all right,

or that I see it’s not okay?

Maybe the moment doesn’t call for words.

What can punctuate it, then?

A look, a pause, a touch, a silence

a reassurance so barely there you might not care

—and I might not dare.

So words will be my offering:

though they often miss their mark,

they may yet reconcile what time and blood cannot

when time and blood is all we’ve got.