It’s so often I am
Pending Approval. Something I’m trying to do
Is waiting to be seen. My reasons are less
than kairos. The perfect moment is never
really a moment but exact time
on a wrist-watch drawn
with pencil.

The paper is thin
and I am arguably thinner. My intention
is not crystal clear, oh dear I think
I’ve confessed. I’m not all I once thought
but who knows? I might turn out
alright. In the grand scheme,
the total blue-print,
the way I’m meant to be. I was perhaps
not so far off.

But here and now I am done
with the feeling of waiting on someone’s
fake time to border my sublime imagination
with the words, the ones I so love; dear woe,
to me, you are not the last resort. You have felt
push and pull and negate toward the bottom of this bookbag
screaming hell to the no with second-to-last— not any more.
see, woe is like me
in so many ways. woe is my last name,
and the first one you can probably guess,
it has everything to do with wordsmith. Wordsmith Woe
under the tow of a thousand tiny voices
all scrimping and saving
for the last effort until the here-and-now. All simply
Pending Approval.

Maybe the first why is the last in a list of five
things I hate about myself. I make plans
and break them. Make stands
and shake them. Hold hands
and fall. Walk sands
and call you in the middle of tonight
to make sure you didn’t wind up hating me.
Maybe why I can’t stand Pending Approval
Is because I’ve been waiting for him
to walk through the front door
with a bouquet of flowers bringing wedding showers
with a new mommy on his hip. Something
to tide the appetite of this thing
called Pending Approval.