I’ve Always Wondered

I’ve always wondered why we never truly realize how much we love someone until it’s already too late.

Why we never appreciate all we have until there’s nothing left, or how a place never seems so special until we can never turn back.

I’ve always wondered why we feel so empty after doing something we thought would make us whole, because nothing ever seems like it’s enough.

The hard liquor trickles down our throats and numbs the pain for a little while, but in the morning when we’re lying in bed with nothing more than a stranger the hurt comes back full force.

Why does the affection of a mother and a father, a sister or a brother, not seem important until they’re gone?

I’ve always wondered why I wonder these things.

Why do I wonder what the strangers next to me on the train are going home to, whether they have a family that adores them or a lonely apartment with no love at all? I stare at the girl with her eyes to the floor and headphones in her ears and wonder if it’s hard for her to get out of bed in the morning.

I’ve always wondered why I wonder these things.

Why are we all so eager to grow up and move on, but weep when there’s no one to tuck us into bed at night?

I’ve always wondered how one day someone can be in the midst of making their cup of coffee and decide they don’t love you anymore. How someone can smile all day long, yet cry into their pillow when everyone else is asleep. How a person can be put in a casket on a Tuesday when you had just seen them on the Monday.

I’ve always wondered why I wonder these things.

Would life be different if you had blue eyes instead of brown, blonde hair instead of dark? What if you had been born in a different place at a different time? Would you be happier?

I wonder if that little girl knew what her uncle was doing to her when she was only seven, hardly able to tie her own shoes or wash her own hair. I wonder how no one ever did anything to help her.

I’ve always wondered why I wonder these things.

I wonder why we never grasp just how much someone is crying out to us, by the scars on their wrist or the whispers they’d make about how no one would miss them.

I’ve always wondered if anyone would miss me. If the people who held me in their arms would be the ones to never think of me again, if the people who laughed in my face would forever live with regret in their hearts.

I wonder if the way the rain feels against my skin is the same way it feels against yours. If the words of my favorite song remind you of the way it felt when he let you go after promising he never would, or when the warm August air made you crazy for a boy who was leaving in September.

I wonder how it’s possible to forget a face. I wonder how you can forget the sound of someone’s voice or the way they tasted against your lips, even though you swore to yourself you’d always remember.

How can we grow up learning all the words,
yet forgetting how to sing?

I’ve always wondered why I wonder these things.