John Tottenham

I am the one
waiting for the One.

I have never entered a room
without hoping that the One
I am waiting for
might be found there.

Despite decades of disappointment,
I still look for her in every face,
looking for somebody to become that place
where everything that falls apart
falls into place.

But if I found her, I wouldn’t want her,
for as long as the possibility
of somebody else wanting me exists,
I will always want somebody else.

And I realize now that if she ever does arrive
it will not be in the prime of either of our lives,
at a cocktail party with a drink in her hand,
but that she is more likely to arrive holding a bedpan
as I am breathing my last in a hospital bed.

Only then, with restlessness and hope extinguished,
and all other options exhausted,
will I finally be ready
for the One.