I'll Be Lighter Then

Looking at your tea
Still warm
I feel both it’s
Relief and emptiness
In being half drunk
Half consumed.

There are leftovers inside of me
That need to be
wrapped up
And refrigerated
But they sit out on the counter
Hoping someone sees them
Before they go bad.
They try to look delicious
But inside they know
Times a tickin’.

As I watch you walk down the stairs,
I see flashes of the film we created
The film that created us-
I used to know how it ended-
I used to be the writer.
What I didn’t realize was
Our hearts were the directors
And God is the producer
And the end
is locked in a vault in the sky.

I see glimpses of the years of footage to come.
You holding hands with your kids.
You walking down the aisle.
You losing your hair but never your bad jokes.
Thousands of cups of coffee
Miles of records
Tons of laughs
Bottles and bottles of wine.

But someone
A beautiful someone
Has been cast in the role
I always thought was mine.
The role I held like a blanket
Over my wild heart.

I thought it would keep me warm
But I couldn’t breathe.

My heart so full of fire
Began burning up the blanket
Til it lay in ashes around my feet.

As I lay here watching my pen dance
Across these pages,
I know this is where I should be
And you are on your own road now.

All that’s left are memories-
Just thoughts.

I’ll take a hot shower and watch them
Wash down the drain.
They’ll wave on their way
Down
Down
Down.
I’ll be lighter then.