C.C.B.

I finally figured out why I haven't let you go.

It's your face.

My mind can't comprehend that yes, you have changed, but your face looks the same. I look at you and only see the person I knew you to be. Your eyes the same. Your hair the same. Your lips the same. How can you be so different when everything else remains? I try to look harder, tracing the lines in your face to see what's left or what's come but I can't find it. Where are you now? Where did you lose that part of you that I knew went along with everything else that's in front of me? Are you still in there somewhere? Will my voice awaken and draw to light the one who's ears used to be tickled by it's sound? Will my eyes meet yours, and make the world I used to get lost in set in motion again?

What has stolen your wonder? The wonder I could see stirring in your mind when your eyes would look up-sideward, your mouth ease into a smile?

What has stolen the humility you carried with your head bowed? When your eyelids rested together, your lips muttering into a silent eternity?

Your arms still look like they could hold me. Your eyes like they still know me.

But none of this is who you are now

and I think I'll have to get past your face if I'm ever going to get past you and me

and what I still think we could be

cuz I could stand here and try to restore you to the person I knew before

But I think what I need to do is close my eyes

and just hear you speak

cuz in whatever brief words you'd have to say about how the heart I knew and this face I see don't belong together any longer

I'll know

I'll know you're gone

So I'll close my eyes and hear you speak

cuz I can't let go with your face right in front of me