Country Song

We did burn brightly didn't we?

We were a beautiful story, a true romance you only read about. 
I changed my curvy wandering path to nest where you had to be.  I played a roll because I wanted to be the most you could love.  You wrote me love songs because you wanted me to be enough, but really you hadn't yet found the bottom of the hole that you needed to fix before somebody else could fill it.

We knew we were going to love each other the second time we ever met.  I knew my children would have your humor, your eyes, your fingers.  I hoped they would have my humor, my honesty, my politics. 
I felt what I never knew I could feel, a faith in the unknown, an exhilarating fear; awash in my new-found adulthood I said I would follow wherever you needed to be - I was willing to make my life fit the shape of yours, and I almost completely convinced myself I wouldn't be giving up too much.

I heard the rose song tonight and I feel a heaviness in my chest.  When it was good, it was so good, wasn't it?


Even at the end there were moments when delusion outweighed sadness, and I could envision us making music and love and babies, and living the fantasy that had shined so brightly not but 18 months earlier.  You would sing a song you had written for me, or the everything song, or the rose song, and for that moment love softened misery and I didn't want to run away.

I learned to take care of the rose bushes at our house together.  When we moved in they were neglected and ugly.  When we moved out, at different times and each with our own scars, they were gorgeous.  That's another country song right there, isn't it?