I dedicate this to Tami Ryan. This special lady is the kind of person who helps me discover what I most need to find...myself.

Cycles

They are called cycles.
They started in your late twenties.
It didn’t have to be the end of the world,
Especially because you had me,
Every step of the way
Loving you with all I had.
I was there for you always,
Every hospital stay,
Every court appearance.
I never could know what game
You were playing, and my fault-
I trusted you to hold all the cards.
Love is blind,
And I could never bring myself to believe
You would gamble them all away.
Somehow, and so long ago,
Things were no longer mutual between us.
You started taking what you could get,
And you took, and you took,
And I gave and I gave.
It just could not matter to you
What would be left of me.
And I wanted to save you so badly
I let this go on and on.
Suddenly you end it all-
Throwing me away for your new love,
But this has nothing to do with love.
I take stock of what is left,
What I let happen.
But no matter how bleak the picture first seems
It comes with a happy ending.
Yes, I am left with half of what everyone else needs
Just to move forward.
I am left with nothing to hold on to,
And nobody to hold me up,
But I let go and let God,
And I discover it was never about what I had or what
I have left.
It is about who I am.
With this discovery I can thrive
Like never before.
Because I have something
You could never have…
Balance.

John H. Bidwell