My wish
I wish I could give you the world wrapped in red ribbon,
tied in a perfect bow,
so you can hold it in your hands and turn it over,
bounce it up and down, and know
how incredibly in control and powerful you are,
even though you think you may not be.
That I could somehow pour happiness onto a platter
and hand it over to you with a smile,
say, “Look, now you can be happy,”
and watch the glow spread through your body
until it finally reaches your eyes.
And I wish I could somehow hand you a string,
and whenever you pull on it, I will pull back,
and I wish this could be enough for you to know that you are not alone,
wherever you are,
wherever you may be,
because I will always pull back,
even when the rest of the world won’t.
I wish that, when your mind begins to drift,
I had an alarm that would sound,
and I would know you need me,
that somehow I would find a way to be there.
And I wish that I could build a staircase up to the sky,
so when you’re sad, you can rest on a cloud,
away from the troubles,
the true cloud nine,
and you’ll be above your daily rain.
I wish that I could build you a boat with my mediocre hands,
and that way you can sail,
far away,
away from your storm of troubles,
and land on a tropical island with bananas of hope and coconuts of happiness
without the bitter taste of melancholia or anxiety –
an island where you can just watch the waves, and lie in the sun,
and just be without the voices of despair telling you not to,
to just be and live and breathe and let that be alright.
And I wish I could sculpt hope into a figure,
one that can fit in your pocket,
and I would know that you carried hope with you wherever you go,
and know that you would never be without it,
even when it rained,
even when the despair of the world poured.
And I wish all these things,
that I could somehow make it better, make it livable,
but I’m stuck with these meaningless hands
that fall dejectedly to my sides when I fail you,
this meaningless voice that cannot call out the right words to sooth your mind,
this meaningless heart that merely beats
but cannot find a way to heal your own.
Dominique Zuniga 