Too Late

Why are we always too late?
It’s like walking out of a movie
right after the best scene.
You never get to know
what happened next.
We fell three days
before you moved
three thousand miles away.
How anti-climactic.
Fire burned between our fingers,
but you had to go.
Like a song that cuts off
right before the best guitar riff,
you were gone.
It kept happening that way,
over and over again.
Like missing a train or last call,
we have always been
one step apart.
I took that journey
but not the step to stay.
You took it too
but not the step to believe.
Always we are seconds away
from what we are meant to be.
One time zone too far,
one right instead of left,
one missed moment away
from finding our fingers entwined,
our hearts knit so tightly
that nothing could shake us apart.
Sometimes,
I wish real love could be like movie love
because then our story
would have some
magically happy ending,
but life isn’t that way
and you won’t come rescue me
and I won’t hop that plane
just to see your face
one last time.
You won’t call
and I won’t write
and our story will end like most–
in a cloud of
wonder
and
regret
and the belief
that it wouldn’t have
worked out anyway.
We have always been
just one moment
too late.