Too Many Photos

So many memories through cloudy eyes
Choke my mind, brings tears upon smiles
And make me know you are here yet,
have never left my flawed heart.

The photographs on the wall are a miracle
of living - still the same so late in the day
They lie to me that we have not changed
That we still know our once sweet honeyed love.

You stare down at me with hair of flame
Eyes flashing green lightening bolts
As you twirl the microphone cord
Singing of loving forever...or for a moment.

We had no more between us, I have too much now
So many remembrances for that short an affair
Seven pictures become seventy become seven hundred
And puncture my nerve endings like hypodermic needles.

Do you know you're still a blazing star
The world waits watching for you to nova
But you glide to the edge and dart away
In a microsecond before the ice shatters.

Eighteen gold records on the office wall
And every spring a standing-room-only concert tour
Of the galaxy while silver pours through you
Like sand in a tall, thin hourglass.

It will take me a lifetime to understand
And even then the time's too short
How a hollow spotlight brings you joy
When you face your middle years alone.

Are you really over thirty now and am I nearing it
When strangers still mistake us for being
Children...and are we so much more who
Threw away a love that yet burns so fierce?

You once dyed your hair to make people look
But now you keep it blond --it hides the grey
Not forever but maybe a little more than tomorrow.
Even you are not the real Peter Pan.

But I don't care -- I look at you then and see
A pretty boy who still could dream of glory
Who turned every girl's head as he passed by
And longed for a love more lasting than a thrill.

The years have ravaged us since then
Glory is no longer just a dream for you,
And you once found the love
You searched for, here with me...an eternity.

I look at you now and cannot believe
A man so beautiful so perfect could exist
In such an imperfect world as this but then
I open my eyes to another empty day

And know the memories have deceived me yet again
The photographs have once more broken my dreams
Placed you there where old loves never die.
I turn them to the wall but you won't go...so stay.