Devotion

by Michael Vakian

When I was a small child,
I was taught—
well, maybe I learned—
what it is to love.

I learned that devotion was a privilege,
not an act:

to show care,
attention,
to give kindness.

Hell, I even learned to sit on the toilet
so I wouldn’t fall into the trap
of confusing bad aim
with indifference.

---

So there you were—
bold and beautiful,
everything a fifteen-year-old mind
could envision,
and something I was so certain
would last forever.

I mean, look at you.

Intelligent.
You adored bravery.
You loved heroes and myth and legend—
just like me.

Hell, when I told you my uncle died in Vietnam,
you told me he died for his country,
and I carried that with me—
a small comfort
for the loss of an uncle
I never got to know.

And when I told you stories of my childhood,
how I loved hearing tales of
Paul Bunyan,
Daniel Boone,
John Henry,
Davy Crockett,
you smiled
and said you loved them too.

But then you paused
and looked away.

There was real sadness in your eyes—
enough to say there was more to tell,
and that you wouldn’t.

---

That’s when I realized
I had been loving
what you wanted me to see,
and not who you really were.

It feels like just yesterday
I caught you in that small lie—
one that would have flitted by
if I hadn’t been paying attention.

I wondered what else
had slipped by
when my eyes
were only on you.

That was the first crack.
The rest came easily.

The doubts I had been dismissing
stopped asking permission.

Something in me
began to go quiet.

Even desire.

Maybe love
and devotion
are not the same thing.

Maybe I needed to see you whole—
the pain,
the waste,
the terrible beauty,
the small aggressions,
the larger ones.

They were all there.

---

Is this salvageable?

Can we meet
on even terms?

I am not looking
through a child’s eyes anymore.

If we are to walk forward,
it will be hand in hand—

aware of who we are,
who we were,

and united.