Place Holder

I’m just a place holder she said.

He didn’t understand.

I am just passing by.

But I want you to stay, he said.

I know, you’re just built that way.

But I am not the one.

I may seem like it.

I know I act like it.

I don’t mean to.

I just love you, can’t help it.

There is something we both

can’t help but being.

But I am just here to hold

her place.

Who, you ask?

You know, the one, her, the one

crooners sing about and poets write about.

I am here to point the way, to plant the seed of

possibility and to lay the tinder for the real fire that will come.

She will come.

But what if she doesn’t you ask. What if, what if, what if.

I don’t know.  I don’t really know if she will come.

But I hope when she does, you will recognize her and you

will know what to do.  She will be like me in some way significant.

I am just holding her place, preparing the ground.  I am the place

holder, that is all and that is everything that I am.

I know this because it is not the first time.