Her Last Curtain Call

I spent the early adult years of my life
being a mother and a loving wife.
I cooked, I cleaned, I kept house.
It was all I'd ever wanted.

With my husband at my side,
I sat in the audience,
Transfixed by the lights and the actor onstage.
Imagining myself dancing, singing up there.
It was all I'd ever wanted.

My family, they were no longer enough.
I began to dream of fortune and fame,
dream of the bright lights surrounding my name.
I thought of myself beside that actor,
warm in a bed we would share.
It was all I'd ever wanted.

I went to the stage to try my hand.
They thought my face pretty, my figure grand.
I was still young, far too young to waste my life
staying at home as no more than a wife.
They put me in a performance.
It was all I'd ever wanted.

The money came in,
the show was a smash.
The price was being away from my family.
Sometimes whole months would go by
My husband would write me. Our children would cry
Wishing I was home, but I told them
I could buy them all they'd ever wanted.

Another show hired me.
My actor starred alongside me.
He took interest in my pretty face and my youth.
I was hypnotized by his gorgeous brown eyes.
And I forgot my life back home.
I was a different girl. Single. Alone.
He was all I'd ever wanted.

My husband discovered my affair.
Betrayed and hurt, he filed for divorce, but I didn't care.
He took our children, went to another state.
In a note he left behind, he wrote,
"We didn't leave you. You left us."
This wasn't what I'd wanted.

Moving pictures came along.
My career couldn't keep up.
I had a face for the stage, but not for the movies.
My actor, he left me to go across the country,
to some golden place called Hollywood.
I wished I could follow.
It was all I'd ever wanted.

I used the last of my money to go back to my flat
that I'd once shared with my husband and children.
I sit here now, alone in my house.
It's been over a year since I've seen my children, my ex-spouse.
None of them will see me. I hurt them so bad.
I'd already had it all. The love of my children, my honey.
I didn't need the fame or the money.
Only now do I realize,
They were all I'd ever wanted.

If you're never satisfied with what you already have,
if you don't stop reaching for what you can't grab,
what you think you want could be your very ruin.
You don't know what you've got until it's gone.