After

After

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

When I cry, my eyes get puffy and my lips turn red.

I wouldn't have expected you to know that.

You've never seen me cry.

That's because I only ever do it when you're far away.

In theatre, being punctual is imperative to success.

If you're not early, you're late, and if you're late, you miss your cues.

Well, if all the world's a stage, you arrived 13 years after your call time.

Or maybe I was a decade early.

I hope you're scribbling in your notebook right now.

Or maybe you're typing away at your phone screen,

Looking for the right rhythm for a stanza and for words that rhyme with me.

Someone told me once that to write is to heal.

It happens slowly, with first drafts and scratched out lines, but eventually, you heal none the less.

So that's what I'm doing.

Or at least, I'm trying to.

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