Leading Man

He walked to center stage,
all lights, all eyes on him,
and from that moment,
he determined the direction
that everything would go.
His character was boundless
yet focused,
his performance sweeping
yet intimate,
forceful and compelling,
sentimental and tender,
drawing me in,
and the supporting role
seemed the natural place to be
for me.

We were a perfect fit,
a complementary duo.
Ah! What a moment!
Then the stage lights moved
and he moved with them,
because he was the leading man,
playing his part.
The story line shifted
with plot twists
and new characters.
He shifted position with each addition,
staying in the light,
except when it pleased him
to let some lesser character prepare the scene
for his next moment.

Sometimes he grasped my hand
and led me into the light
with him,
and played off me,
his supporting character,
and I reveled
in the moment.
But with each twist of the story,
he changed his character
to suit the situation
or to make new cast members
fit the moment.
I tried to adapt,
But I wasn't playing.
I was being.

My character was necessary
to his story,
until it wasn't,
and our perfect fit
became less perfect.
I saw that a shift in his story line,
for a moment,
was all it ever really was.
And the leading man
was who he needed to be
in the moment
that he met me,
to draw me into his supporting role,
a role which no one can hold
for more than a moment.

So I walked to the wings,
leaving the stage lights
shining on the leading man
and the new supporting characters
who, too,
would come and go,
as he shifted who he was
for the moment.
They would eventually,
as I had,
find that, though he was
the leading man,
he was really only
who he was
in the moment.