If I had three wishes

If I had three wishes

I’d give them back because

I’d always be known

as the girl who’d blown

her wishes

on money, the chance to fly, and a free meal until I die.

you see,

I’d wish for money – not endless amounts but just

enough to pay my loans, buy my parents’ house for them and get my master’s degree;

I’d wish for a lifetime supply

of tickets to fly

anywhere in the world

(business class, of course)

and then,

I’d use my final wish on food;

a five-star restaurant meal in France – repeated just once a year until I die.

Now you think I’ve wasted them on the trivial,

that I’ve not asked for enough, that I’ve been self-centered,

you despair at the smallness of my mind

in wishing for

money, the chance to fly, and a free meal until I die

but wait, here’s why:

some might say I should wish for

world peace

salvation

equality

                but then where would we be?

all people would probably have to die

for peace

and why

did God not decide to do salvation that way in the first place?

What would a socio-economic clean-up really mean;

what would the end of poverty

take away from us?

Truth is

I can’t try fix it all when I don’t know what further squall my fixes might create;

there’s just one God and I don’t really want his job.

So should I wish for sleep

- gosh that would be nice -

or no more zesa cuts

or a Zimbabwe free from those mutts who call themselves our leaders.

Should I wish for safety for the ones whose souls I care about?

would that sort our problems out

or take their chance at life away?

Should I ask for no more pain?

For universal pardon?

For anonymity

or fame?

For longer life

or death at birth?

I’d like to wish for no more fear

                but then who would I be

without my anxiety.

Because, you see,

if I wished for what I really want,

if I used my three free wishes to ask for peace and certainty,

                to ask above all things for truth,

then that would be the end of the real me.

And in reality

I have a life to live

and I don’t want to know the future

or how heavy the world really is.