Julia’s Theme

Your keys are on the side,
the keys of the piano miss your tender touch,
and so do I,
but, love,
this is the end.

There will be tears,
storms on both sides of a closed door,
time and space tearing apart,
but new lives are starting,
and there’s no more days to waste on our woes.

You go, with a sad look over your shoulder,
the kind of look that makes me wonder if you’ll wander back down this road again someday,
the kind of look that makes me want to stay,
just in case,
but I pack up my prized possessions,
and I sit under the stars in the back garden,
my back turned to you,
begging you to leave.

Tomorrow,
I will be gone.
I have told myself this for a thousand years,
but tomorrow is my true love,
and I will see her in a place that you cannot find,
because I need to be free of us.

Yesterday,
that is the love that will live on in my mind for a lifetime,
lingering like your sad stare, over your shoulder,
so strong as I sit down at seven thirty,
settling on the sofa to watch my soaps,
once our soaps,
but now, just mine.

Tomorrow,
I will be gone.
Tomorrow,
I will have torn myself away from this museum of what could have been,
postcards from the places we promised to take the children,
the last beer that you left in the fridge, that I will drink, despite hating the taste,
empty photograph frames that we forgot to fill, when we were so busy with the thrill of love,
but that is for tomorrow.

Today,
I will watch our soaps,
while they are still ours,
I will choke on the taste of that revolting swill you so loved, but left in the fridge,
and I will mourn,
in my little museum of what could have been.