The Only Exception...

Second Choice

He asks me if he should join
And I tell him yes.
I know he'll enjoy the stress,
Enjoy the tests,
The structure that comes with going.

In the short time I've know him
He's turned my life around
I know that soon it will begin,
But the longer I sit and listen, the more I fear the ending.

He has this need to prove himself,
To show he can achieve the impossible,
To play his hand, win this game,
Without knowing what I have been dealt.

I try my best to keep him from seeing
the selfishness, that always reminds me
That he wasn't made to be tamed, contained,
Reminds me that he can't stay.

I don't want him to leave,
This constant battle of armies.
The one that insists on letting him go,
That knows he'll come back home to me,
And the other who pleads and begs
That he would just stay here instead.

This war over love is getting to rough.
This push and shove between what's right and what's wanted.

I love him so much,
But as he asks if I'm ready,
The beat of my heart becomes messy.

When the absence of a deep voice that awakens something inside,
A love of a different kind,
When that hand is something I can no longer grab,
When the face that haunts my dreams,
That slows the speed of the things that flood my mind,
The day that man no longer stands by my side,
Will be the day a part of me will die.

I don't want him to go
But I can't let him stay.
But I chose to stay in this place,
Face the things I've run from,
But as I face my demons,
I see him leaving.

I know a few years is nothing to be upset about
But in one week, I can't seem to count the days it holds.
A month squeezed in a week,
A week in a day,
And then it rains.

Each drop like tears from the heavens,
Like it saddens God to hear my message,
A message that can't be answered.
The prayers I know I'll  pray
Each rainy day
When he's away.

The need in his voice confirms my fears.
That desperation for adrenaline.
Though many things in me he mirrors,
We are different, Lord knows that.

I wish he could pick something else.
Have a different goal, different dream for his heart to hold,
But I know.
I know it's in his blood, in his veins,
Been programmed in his brain
Made to be the best,
And to that I can't contest.

Because that is in his heart
This is who he is.

But I wish there was another way,
I wish there was a second choice
I wish there was a chance I could persuade him to stay.
But there's not.