Waiting Since Yesterday

Sometimes you have to wonder why it never happens,
you never understood, though that makes little difference.
Everyone's been there, maybe a few times by now,
but then there's you.

Sometimes you think it's something wrong with you,
maybe it's your looks, you're far from special,
but that seems too shallow and simple to be the answer,
you're far from the worst, and they seem to be doing just fine.

your parents tell you how handsome you are,
how they see all the others look at you,
but you never saw it, in yourself or the actions of others, and you start to doubt,
these praises fall on scarred ears, slashed by low self esteem and burned by well-meant white-lies.

maybe there's just something about you,
some assumption making the statement "it'll happen eventually" non sequitur.
you thought maybe if you found the right song, or the perfect stroke,
that maybe then something would change, but it never did.

maybe you don't talk enough, not loud enough, not self-righteous enough, not pridefully enough.
you are none of those things, not anymore, not since you were a kid raucous on the playground.
you remember when you were the big kid on the street,
when it seemed like everyone liked you, now you're lucky to get noticed.

Now you jump when someone just uses your name, what a rare event.
your self-image and human contact are so gaunt you've forgotten,
forgotten how it feels, something everyone else seems to know,
maybe that’s it, maybe you’re soul is just too disfigured, no matter how hard you tried to hold it’s shape

you watch as others are happy, you watch movies with happy endings,
they save the day and the new couple walks off into the sunset to joyous music,
but you are never happy, not for long, life reasserts itself too quickly.
you know you should feel a warm glow, but for the life of you, you can't find it anymore.

what you find is something else, if it hadn’t happened before, you might mistake it for happiness,
but you know better by now, you have the bruises, it’s a funny feeling,
some subspace spanned by jealousy, longing, and grief.
maybe it’s the cascade of self-fulfilling prophecy; I am myself therefore I hurt, I hurt therefore I am myself.

you hear all the contented people around laugh and talk about how good their day was
sometimes they say it passed in the blink of an eye.
if a day can pass in 400 milliseconds, then,
you’d say it feels like you’ve been waiting since yesterday