I... don't really get this part.

It always happens. Every single time. So often that I know to expect it.
It's a song I know too well.
I've heard it so many times that whether or not I wanted to, I learned every last lyric, down to the most precise note.

And yet... somehow, it hits me just as hard,
Every,
Single,
Time.
No more.
No less.
Exactly. The. Same.

I'm happy.
As the curtains fall, I'm grinning widely.
As we march off the risers in our rows, I can't help but strut with pride.
As I click "publish", a smile escapes my lips without fail.

And suddenly,
When the cast party is over,
And the robes are put away,
And the computer is shut down,
And it's just... me. Alone.
Suddenly, I'm not.

Suddenly, I remember.
I am... reminded.
That this too, shall die.
That this too, shall pass.
That this too, is a moment. One I will someday forget.
And I loathe that thought.
I despise it.
Because I promise not to.

I always end up promising, even if I don't mean to, that I will never forget

A show.
A performance.
A story.

Something I worked hard on.
Something that contains a piece of me. My heart, my soul, what have you.
Something I am proud of. Or... that I should be proud of.

And then, months, years later, I am reminded.
And when I am, I am also reminded that I broke that promise.
I am reminded that I forgot.
And I am scared.

It feels as though I blink, and I am somewhere else.
Time moves too quickly to process, until it moves too slowly to do anything but.
What am I to do, then?
Stare until my eyes turn to dust?
No. I am a coward. I will always blink.

It is an underlying, bassy, minor chord
That somehow keeps the intensity and volume of the highest, proudest note.

It is looking at your cast,
At your choir,
At everything you have done,
And realizing that it will all be forgotten.
The very thing you had hoped to avoid.

The lines you memorize?
You'll try to recite them, and your tongue will walk out of your mouth.
The notes you love?
You'll try to sing them, and your throat will knot.
The stories you write?
You'll try to pick up a pen, and your fingers will fall away.

All will be lost to obscurity.
All succumb to the fact that you are nothing,
You have been nothing,
You will be nothing,
And there is nothing to do,
And there is nothing else.

And in that nothingness...
In that meaninglessness...
In that hopelessness...

That is where
I make my bed
And lie
After the show.