23 Years

Was it the aching of your wrists?
Or just because of your weathered eyes?
Was it the shake in your clenching fist
Or the hollow pass of time?

Was it the aging of her hips?
Or the way that my mother always cried?
Was it the taste of another's lips
For which you put down your fight?

Had you forgotten her long white dress?
How pretty she looked coming down the aisle?
You asked her to love you, and she said yes
And she loved you like a child

Had you forgotten those long hard days
Coming home to your lover every night?
She'd wait for you to step off of that train
She's been waiting all her life

Love is getting your hands dirty
Love is bleeding all over each other
Love is sharing the same burdens
Love's not living, it's dying together
It's dying together

I feel the weight of her broken prayer
23 years pleading for your life
23 years begging you to care
For your tired and lonely wife