Rock Star Turbulence

Why sadness when following one’s calling?
It’s the letting go, caressing your emotions,
comforting your fears, then setting them
in a safe place and carrying on in opposition
to their plea for you to continue only the familiar,
well worn path, the one you are determined
to step away from in order to become a rock star.

Early afternoon is hardest, when the sun is just right,
and the long evening stretches before you just around the bend,
when you have to keep walking this new way
at a time when it would be so easy to give up,
fold into old habits, and pat your dreams on the head,
set them on the shelf and act like there never was a higher notion.

Sadness in knowing that if those dreams sit on the shelf,
you can’t properly go back; the possibilities would become
ghosts that weave a whisper through every decision you make,
even to stir the potatoes lest they stick. There you’d be at the stove,
your arm swirling in deference to the mundane, your heart
aching in the never-knowing if you could have, if it would
have been better, if you might have flown, if only for a moment.
And even rock stars stir potatoes in between.

Knowing the truth about giving up, you walk
straight into the path of perceived risk, a single tear,
the sign of courageous determination, sliding
down your cheek, falling from your face,
a soft breeze cooling your skin as you accept
the turbulence of takeoff, and look forward to the day
you just might soar.