**Title is a lyric taken from the song “It’s Been a While” by Staind**

The stage at the back
of the karaoke bar beckons,
warm with its draperies of neon
and spotlights
like suns.

A hot mic begs to be touched,
cradled, or even
kissed.

An itching gets into my soul
that my mind tries to scratch
with memories
of singing.

Remember when this was what we did
almost every night of the week,
hanging our aprons up
at the restaurant down the street
to scream out our steams
in front of teeming drunken crowds?

The way we could command
attention
solo
or in duets.

Everybody cheered
my first time,
when the DJ declared me
a karaoke virgin.

Nobody believed it
by the time I came down
from that stage.

“It’s Been a While” by Staind
was my song of choice that night
and I belted it out
with all the years I’d spent listening.

You said I was finally a real regular.

Over the years,
higher notes were reached
and repertoires inflated.
The DJ, calling me up,
now declared
Y’all are about to get Phil’d.

He wasn’t wrong.

The night was a playground
back then.
5 a.m. was a bedtime.
More than once
the White Castle next door
was the place to sleep.
Those made for the longest mornings.

But then you get let go
from that restaurant down the street.
Suddenly life is a scramble,
figuring out week to week
scrounging together a new routine
that never finds a way to loop back in
the karaoke bar called home for so long,
the brothers and sisters of found family.

I think about you
from time to time
when a somber, guitar-picked riff
floats through my ears.

Those were good days.

Good days, indeed.