I Have – The Writings of Tom Grasso

I have but one wish,
And that is to die a happy man.
I have but one dream,
And that is to live as a happy man.
I have but one reality,
And that is that I can be a happy man.
I have but one thought,
And that is “I should be happy”.
I have but one thing in my possession,
And that is my own joy.
I have but an answer to your question,
“I hope you find happiness”.
I have but one mission,
And that is to discover the meaning of bliss.

I cannot understand the overwhelming sadness that washes over me.
I cannot compute the anger that I feel.
I cannot help the despair that drives me to complete numbness.
I cannot stop the voices that tell me what to think.
I cannot forget the memories that drive me to madness.
Yet I know that I can be happy if only to forgive
Because these things prove to me that such joy exists.
Although “I cannot” all of these things there can be bliss in spite of them,
I know that I can be an oasis of peace in a desert of war,
If only I would lay my sword to rest.

I have but one reality, and it is the one that I choose.
How you see me in my moment of despair is your reality,
A reality you choose as if it were a play not written to your liking
Or entertaining you beyond all measure.
I could come down from this cross or simply choose to embrace it,
But what would you have me do with yours?
I have no choice in your suffering,
I have no desire to see you in it,
Yet I have no ability to remove you from its grasp.
We know that love exists, yet we choose to run from it,
To seek out the nails that hold us to our suffering
And make them hold us fast to the pain we have chosen as our own.

I offer you my hand,
If not to hold yours in ecstasy than to endure the nail with you,
To suffer with you as you have suffered with me,
To beg of you to seek another way but to share with you the path you have chosen.
There are not options if you choose love’s reality.
For I have seen the promise land,
In your eyes, in your arms, in the promise of tomorrow.
I have seen where my journey ends,
As surely as I know where it began.

See, if I have nothing else in this life I have a choice.
A choice to love or to fear,
To be or not to be.
To ask the question or live the answer,
To heal or to hurt, to caress or ignore,
To forgive and re-member or remember and stay angry.
Such choice I can make in the blink of an eye,
With the power of the universe behind me.