I watch you sleep, time has traced his fingers along your face;
You are as familiar to me now as my Grandmothers perfume,
Taking me on journeys through time and space
To when we were young and life didn’t get in the way of happiness
I hear your laughter at the front door and know you are home,
With your soiled boots and dirty whiskers carrying the evidence of labour.
I remember laughing with you…before I changed.
When time was ours to do with as we pleased, to love and linger.
The children are crying, they sense my displeasure at simply being me,
I have become the women I pitied with rough hands and tired expressions.
Would I have chosen a different path if I had known the reality of normality?
I think I would have, but I changed and now I find joy in the misery.
You tell me I am beautiful, that the stretch marks and laughter lines
Have made me a woman plump with the juices of life and experience,
When our love was new I might have believed you, but I have changed…
And now I look into the mirror; and wish I could…change…
© K. J. Lander 2008