And that’s the thing. In order to avoid such unbelievable heart ache, you will never get to feel the highs of love. The insane flutter of a thousand butterflies in your stomach when he says that he likes the way you sing in the car. The tingles from your fingertips to your toes when he comes up behind you and wraps his arms around you swaying. Let and right, and you can feel your heart go with him. Left and right. In these moments, nothing is scary, nothing aches and breaks. You could live in that euphoria forever. But that is not reality. And unfortunately, reality doesn’t foreshadow. There are no preview clips for next week’s episode. So what do you do?

Some gamble. Some take the risks because the fall is worth the flight. “Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all,” right? To some, that’s exactly right. Maybe the more sentimental ones. Because in each moment, in each flutter and tingle and spark, these memories build into something. And when this all comes crashing down, they have that still shining in the ashes. You can’t burn memories. You can’t light a match to the good times, they happened, and in their own right- they are beautiful, they are worth it. And so to some, and arguably many, it’s worth the gamble.

Others don’t have much of an interest in betting. Maybe they’ve been down that road before, and lost a lot of money in the process. Or maybe it’s just a habit that they have no interest in dabbling in. I’ve been to a casino before, but never sat at the table. However, I can attest to the energy, an addiction in and of itself. I arguably have more fun watching than participating. And this is a safe place to be. To feel the secondhand highs, but when the night is over, you walk away without a scratch.

And in love, maybe this is the safest place to be. At an arm’s length, never close enough to fall, because you barely got off the ground. Lust, interest, companion, friend, mutually beneficial- all of these are safe. None of these can hurt you in the end. None of these make you vulnerable. And if you exist with someone on the surface, the end doesn’t even feel like an end at all, just a transition to the next.

But as long as you tread lightly, you can kiss the butterflies goodbye. As long as you stay away from the deep end, you will never feel a fraction of what the human heart is made to feel. Love truly is a beautiful thing, that can make you feel explosions and extreme happiness like nothing you’ve ever known in this life. With that, comes extreme vulnerability. To cut open your chest and say to someone,”Here have this. I know it’s not much right now, but if you give me yours- it’ll become a lot more than an ***** that keeps the blood pumping.”

Like I said, I’ve been to a casino before. And when it comes to you, I think I’ll take a seat.

If you’re expecting gold, don’t.
Because sometimes being made of stone that is smoothed and polished
is good enough.
And even the people with cracks and crevices,
make them so much more interesting to explore.

2. Never forget the closest playground,
because you should never have to get any higher
than a swing can take you.
I promise
that is the most effective way of touching the sky.  

3. If you want to leave the country when times get hard
grab a shovel and start to dig
Dig until you’ve reached China,
or till the wet earth glares at you,
either way you’ll learn you have to face your problems.

4. Make a pinky promise,
make a blood bond.
Trust them, but draw the line in something more permanent than time.
Make sure that line can’t be erased,
along with your standards.  

5. If someone decides to leave one day, don’t show them the door,
show them a map.
Show them all the possible destinations they could go
because people aren’t homes,
they are the foundation for building.

6. Don’t overlook the way your mother
says your full name when she’s angry,
or the way your father cried when the Red Sox won the World Series.
It’s the little things you’ll miss
when you’re choking out a goodbye.

7. Know the difference between kisses made with lips
and kisses made with hearts.
because the end of the world doesn’t come
when the person who you thought would be here forever,
leaves.

8. If someone upsets you, let it go.
But if they do it again, take their words and string them across a fence,
show them all the ways they hurt you.
Then climb up and over,
but make sure to shout forgiveness from the other side.

9. Change with the seasons,
try on different pairs of boots, different skins.
You have time to figure out who you want to be,
but once you do, replace the zipper with a thread and needle.
Don’t let anyone pull on the loose strings.  

10. And when it comes down to it,
none of these will get you on your high horse.
You’re going to fall
and a stampede will not help you up,
but the sound of trampling is really just the sound of lessons learned.

They say love is suppose to be like fireworks,
loud and overwhelming and intense.
Your heart is suppose to race and
your stomach should twist into knots.

But our love is like elevator music,
a faint fuzz in the back of a chaotic mind.
It’s innocently present,
and does not crave attention.

You have given me a chance to continue on,
to not be defined by another being.
You have seen what I need is to be happy,
but that happiness needs to be self-made.

You have taught me to love every failed test grade,
and every bad hair day.
Because although you say you love me,
you tell me it is more important that I love myself.

And if you ever think for a minute
that you have not impacted me,
remember that a writer does not thrive,
without their inspiration.

It’s 11:26 and I have no inspiration,
but then I remembered that outside there are stars
making pictures in the sky and reminding us
that our problems are nothing compared to the universe.

And somewhere there is a woman clutching her belly
as her husband squeezes her hand
because they are about to receive the greatest gift,
and their lives changed forever.

There is a couple lying together,
smiling silently in the dark, thinking the other is asleep
as they celebrate fifty years of marriage,
a love stronger than the word itself.

Out there, there is a child who first learned how to ride a bike
and a father who is proud to say “that’s my girl”,
and as he takes the training wheels off
he thinks about the day he’ll have to let her go.

Far, far away there is a man covered in camouflage,
and as he enters another day with an uncertain end,
he pulls out the picture of the girl back home,
and is reminded of why it is all worth it.

It’s 11:26 and don’t tell me there is no inspiration,
because as long as there are people still breathing
and a world still spinning,
then beauty comes as naturally as life itself.

For all of the months we spent together, I thought of you in neatly organized sentences. “I love you.” Always with a period, because that’s how you know someone really means it. The first word of every sentence about you was capitalized, because you weren’t some sloppy diary entry splattered on an old composition notebook page. You were a carefully crafted novel, bound by alternative rock bands and chinese buffets. You were different, and you could not have possibly been summed up in a measly three paragraph essay, like the one I wrote about Abraham Lincoln in the fifth grade. Every comma was the pause I had to take when I saw you, because I swear each day you continued to take my breath away. And with you, there were no misspellings, there were no grammatical errors. You had flaws, but they were so deeply hidden in between the lines that I didn’t even bother looking for them. I guess that’s why I didn’t notice when I became less and less of a priority. And when the “goodmorning” texts came to an end, that should have been a red flag. Your copy of How to Treat Someone You Love would be similar to a guide on how to take care of a goldfish. “Feed twice a day and change water once a week”. It’s really that simple for you, because you have the mind of an engineer. Logical. Precise. There is no such thing as passion and forgiveness, just empty “I love you”’s. Because you once told me that we are just in high school. You never really explained what that meant, but I got the hint. So I left.
            Because if there’s one thing I realized, it’s that you cannot make someone love you. You cannot make them care, and you cannot make them stay. And it’s one of the hardest things to do, but once you realize it, you get this new sense of… freedom. Not the feeling you get after the last bell on the last day of school, not that. But more like you see the world for all it’s worth, for the first time. Because it feels good to let go of the idea that you need closure. People don’t need closure, they need to turn around and walk away. They need to not put up with the people who wouldn’t put up with them. I don’t need closure on why we ended, I don’t need to know why you never took me back. You made your decisions, and now it’s my turn to make mine. Because if it were meant to be, my birthday would not have passed with nothing more than a text saying “hbd”. Hbd. I guess that’s who you’ve become. Your novel-like qualities have become nothing more than text lingo in the inbox of a teen girl. I swear I use to look at you like you were a poem written by e.e. cummings, but now you’re nothing more than a piece of scrap paper under my bed. And it’s sad because although I don’t know much about love, I knew enough to make you see the world in shades other than black and white like you’ve been raised to see.
            And thinking back on what we had, I see it as an art collection. But it wasn’t structured around the basic principles of primary colors and symmetry. It had life and depth and meaning. Things I could never get you to understand. But now I realize it wasn’t because we had it all wrong, it’s because we try to make it too right. But art isn’t right, it isn’t pretty. It’s brutal and honest, but it makes you feel things that engineers can’t. And I guess that’s what a poet gets for messing around with numbers and figures. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve exhausted every word and every sentence that could possibly be used to talk about you. I paid you the highest form of flattery, I made you into my art piece. I made you dance across the page, and brought what we had to life, because in reality it was dead. I tried to salvage us, but now I’m happy with letting my idea of you go. Because it’s not closure that I need, it’s distance. Especially distance on paper. So as this course comes to end, so does my time spent on you. Some people are better off wrapped up in the laws and theorems, because not even words can make them beautiful.