You were the boy who turned my life in so many directions that I had to put it into words.
You were my muse, you were the one who made me start to write.
People always say if you fall in love with a writer and end up hurting them that you should be thankful.
They say that because writers will create art out of you. You'll become their masterpiece.
You are the person who made me feel so high on cloud nine, without a care in the world, the happiest I had ever been.
But you're also the person who made me cry the most. The most painful, screaming, heartwrenching sobs I've ever shed were because of you.
You've shattered and repaired my heart throughout the years, you've wreaked havoc in my life and made it feel like the most peaceful wonderland that there ever was.
I don't know how to go back to a life that doesn't include you, but regardless of if you're here or not, you'll be the most beautiful piece of art that you never knew you'd be.
How are you supposed to just stop loving someone and move on like they never mattered to you?

Don't fall in love with the broken boy.
I will tell you from experience,
Don't do it.
You may think you will fix him,
You can bind up his wounds,
That your love will fix all that's broken in his life,
But I'll tell you,
It's all a lie.

You can't change a man,
You never can.
They'll tell you that time and time again and you'll shake your head and scoff thinking,
"They don't know what I can do."
You can't.

You yourself are broken.
You thought he'd fall in love with you and that your anxiety isn't that big of a deal.
That maybe it'll even be a part of you that he'll love you because of and in spite of.
It's not something to romanticize.

He'll try to fit into the mold he thinks you have for men,
And he'll give up once he believes he'll never fit into that.
And he'll break your heart leaving you in the process.
He claims this is only temporary and that it'll be over soon,
He just needs to figure himself out.

But if it's not goodbye, why does it feel like you're nowhere to be found?

I’d like to go on living like none of this ever happened.
But I can’t.
Because it’s still my reality.
And it will be my reality even if you’re not around.

They say you can’t change a man, not to even try.
But I did.
I tried.
I spent hours praying,
I spent days crying,
I spent an eternity trying to mold and shape you into what I thought you were supposed to be,
Into who I saw you could be.

I know it’s not my job,
I know I shouldn’t have even tried.
I broke all the pieces of myself,
And the pieces of my own heart in the process
Before you could even break me.

I always picked up the pieces left over from you;
From your heartbreaks and your hardships.
All I ever wanted was you.
And now I’m left still behind you
Picking up the pieces of myself that you broke
Filling all the holes that you punctured through.

You didn’t mean to hurt me, this was never your intention.
But I’m broken,
I’m torn,
I’m hurt.
You were caught in the middle of two ways to hurt me,
And somehow, you chose the worst one.

How can I believe someone that completely ruined my trust?
Chewed it up, spit it out, and you don’t seem to care.
Yet, in the deepest parts of me I still trust you.
You’re still my home.
And I shouldn’t have put that much of myself into someone when I’m only eighteen.

I’m afraid the only thing that’s going to fix me is the same thing that broke me.
You.

I just love Love in its purest form.
Two people hugging or kissing or simply being by each other.
When love is at its purest, most unadulterated form, you feel it.
Whether it’s two people right in front of you, or a picture of a couple, or you and me;
It cuts deep. You feel it when it’s real.
You feel it in your bones, so much so that they ache.
A good aching.
One that heals all the parts of you that were broken and bruised and crushed in that time where you thought you would never make it out of that pit, when you couldn’t get out of bed and cried every day.
Love heals the hurts you have.
Love is beautiful.
Even if it has nothing to do with you.

In the Winter
we were friends,
but we weren't that close

In the Spring
we were best friends
that were torn apart
by your relationship

In the Summer
we were closer than ever
unofficial lovers
the best of friends

In the Fall
still best friends
but you're going out places
with other people
and I wonder
where we'll be
when it's Winter again

And here I am
trying not to get bad again
I don't want to go back into that downward spiral
that you made me dive into just three months ago
I allowed it to happen
I probably even made it worse
by my own thoughts

I don't want to be sad all the time again
I don't want to give you the power
to destroy me again

when you're knocked down
you're supposed to pick yourself up
and I did that last time
I picked up the broken pieces
and gave them to you to reassemble
even though you were the one that broke me

and it's one little thing that sets me off
one little thing
that might not even be a thing
and it's stupid
it's so stupid
that I'm even worrying about this
because I was supposed to learn
I am supposed to be better this time

I will not allow you to destroy me again
I will not allow my feelings to destroy me again
I will not allow my mind to destroy me again
I will not allow myself to destroy me again

I am stronger than I think
I do not let my over-thinking destroy my happiness
because even if life doesn't go how I want it to
there is still sunshine

and one person
is not going to depict how happy I am
or how happy my life should be
because there is so much to be happy about
even if I don't see it at first

One day,
whether you're just a roller coaster of a memory
or the one sleeping next to me at night,
I'll always remember how it was you.
It was always you.
It has always been you.
The one I loved at sixteen,
seventeen,
eighteen.

The one I loved in the dark and in the sunrise.
In the secret hallows of the night
and the transparency of thanksgiving day with our families.

The long string of nights I spent crying and breaking inside
longing for you to love me back.
Never thinking it was a possibility.

Until you surprised me.

You're the boy I kissed at seventeen...
eighteen...
the first one.
The hopeful last one.