The One Thing

You might wonder (at least once, admit it)
By happenstance, a shower thought
That divulged into a conglomerate of ideas,
Only to be worked and reworked and kneaded
By contradictions, flaws, logical thinking
(even in a hypothetical,
Potentially illogical state of being)
What’s the one thing you can’t live without?

 

A hastily given answer might say a book--a computer,
Basic necessities (for why wouldn’t you choose it,
Isn’t anyone thinking realistically? Sheesh.)
Think harder.

A more provoking answer might be a loved one,
Something that satisfies the ache,
the craving to love and to be loved.

Puppies might be a great answer here.

 

Who loves those puppies, though?
What is it that others with the desire to love love?

A guess: it’s a three letter word.
Another: you’ve already read the answer.
And just now again.

It’s you.

 

You are many things.

Infinitely many things, if we think mathematically

A culmination of one in a billion chances ballooning

Together into something entirely unique.

You are six billion base pairs potential,

Merely a rickety backbone frame

Before your DNA comes into play.

 

So books may satisfy knowledge,  
Your friends and family your love,

But of all the things you may lose

Isn’t the one thing that lets you love

And lets you have knowledge

The one thing you can’t live without?

 

For you may be you but you lack you,

Boston doughnuts without the cream

And only one thing to be filled
(Or, two--who wants a creamless Boston
doughnut?)

Other’s love may count as filling,

But it’s never quite the perfect filling.

 

Nothing is so actualizing
As loving yourself
And having others love you.

For it fills every of you crevice like caulk

And makes you realize

You could have lived without this before

But it will never be as fulfilling as this.

 

To live without something

That lets everything you are be you

And gives you such potential to be

Whatever it is you want to be

With man’s greatest single power--

The power to be, to do, and to become --

It’s the one thing I can’t live without.

 

This poem is about: 
Me

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