Self-Reliance

Others won't always be there, but you always will.

I called you, and you never came

I called you, and you never came.
A bit ashamed, a bit dismayed,
Alone; I wallowed for a while.

But then I thought that I would do 
The thing that I had planned for two—
And, though alone, it made me smile. 

Explanation

This poem sounds like it is about being stood up. In one way it is, but really it is just about a miscommunication that happened at home. I went upstairs to exercise, and asked my fiancée to come with me. She didn’t, and I felt sad. Really, she was just exercising downstairs. 

One thing that poetry does is it becomes universal, and in becoming universal, takes on new meaning for new readers. Therefore, this poem might read to someone who has been stood up as referring to that event. This is one of the great ways that you can learn from literature: it manages to describe what has happened to you without knowing you at all.

The message of this poem is the same no matter how it relates—or does not relate—to your life. The message is to value your own time, because you are the one who will value it most highly. Other people might not always be there for you; sometimes a first date will stand you up; sometimes your partner just will not be able to spend a few minutes with you when you need it most. 

Self-sufficiency is, therefore, important. That does not mean you should be isolationist: a strong community helps immensely with building self-sufficiency. Individuality, actually, only exists in relation to the group. Try to define “group” without the notion “individual,” and you will see what I mean.

Lesson

You need to have a group—and I hope that you have one—but you also need to be capable of standing on your own two feet.

When my fiancée didn’t come upstairs, I put on a YouTube video, and cycled for 30 minutes without her. Afterwards, I felt great, and wrote this letter to you.

Poem stats

6 lines

Iambic tetrameter 

Rhyme scheme: aab ccb