Sometimes I Can See the Future

Sometimes, I can see the future.

That’s what I tell them when people ask me if I regret

the choices I’ve made

the things I’ve done,

the wars I’ve waged

inside and outside of myself.

That’s what I tell them when they ask if I’d take back

The nights when I fell asleep, my face wet with tears

Or the days when I cried out “God why did you leave me here

On this island

Alone?”

I look back in the mirror at the creature that is myself

And they have the nerve to ask me what I see.

Sometimes, I see the future.

I see the thousands of tears that I’ve cried  over all those years, falling one by one into a river so long that I can’t even see where it goes.

But my children

they’re going to be sailors

one day they’re going to get in their boats and I’m going to help them shove off with all the wisdom that I have so that those tears can take them to places that I never could have dreamed of.

And I’ll look back and realize that that island wasn’t so lonely after all

And that there’s not a single spot in my life where mine were the only footprints in the sand

Because He walked with me.

Oh yes, sometimes, I can see the future.