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When I think of it now
I am angry.
I am angry you missed out on your life.
I didn't know your middle name,
your favorite color,
or what foods you liked.
Our lives didn't matter to each other's lives,
but I would have known you next year
at college.
You were on the cusp of adulthood,
the moment of change,
leaving it all.

Anyway,
now I know from the pamphlet they gave us at the church:
your middle name was Paul.
I look around this room I know
and see things that I don't.
New items that I can't remember,
old items that I won't.
Sometimes I feel like I don't know you anymore.
You’re always laughing, always walking, always singing, always talking,
As long as you’re around, I won’t leave this funny town,
No matter how much I want to flee.
They won’t come for you and me.

It’s strange how this love happened,
So spontaneous and rapid,
Unlike me in every single way.
You showed up out of nowhere and the heavens sang some hymns,
And now the monotony of life has begun to dim.
So yes, darling, please hold my hand we’ll make the break and take a stand even as the time makes us discreetly yawn…
We will be quiet rebels ‘till the dawn.

Because the night is where we thrive,
Away from humans civilized,
Our love is silent and it is so obscure.
And on every other day,
We meet beside the bay,
And watch the ripples scatter in the glassy sheen.
And that’s when we heard the townspeople all scream.

My father leads the pack followed closely by my mom,
Your mother is crying and whispering some prayer.
Your sister’s looking guilty and my brother’s looking ******,
My grandmother is shaking her small fist.
I clutch tighter to your hand, whimper terrified and sad,
Knowing the end’s coming inevitably…
You lean in close and whisper, “Run with me.”

And so we do, hand in hand, making footprints in the sand, not caring if they follow at all now.
Because we made preparations,
This is cause for celebration!
We’re ready to escape this ******* town.
Where mothers can be mothers only if they are with fathers and fathers have to wear suits every day.
We prepared to outrun the grey.

So there it goes, the gunshot,
Though it is by my hand,
And my mother collapses in the sand.
She says, “I know this was important, but nothing is ever worth this,”
My father gently purses his old lips.
Soon a second gunshot and my love falls down with me,
And from his family’s side a cry of agony.
With only moments left I look into your honest eyes,
And with my heart my body slowly dies.

We were always laughing, always walking, always singing, always talking,
And as long as you were around, I couldn’t leave this ****** up town,
No matter how much I wanted to see,
If the world could handle you and me.

— The End —