The summer you came along I found myself running red lights and passing stop signs. I lived like I was on fire and you were the one who kept those flames ignited. I disregarded the caution signs that stood in front of you for miles when I was making my way towards you and now I can only wish that I had paid more attention to the warning lables. The winter that you left, I washed away my flames with tears that settled beneath my eyes and as those tears mixed with each sleepless night the ash piles grew bigger and I wondered how much I could hold. Those days, I lived furiously but more importantly I lived with you by my side. That summer you came along you left your marks on me like foofootprints in wet cement. I knew that those marks could never be undone so I convinced myself that you had to stay so maybe that's why the winter that you left I didn't drive when the light turned green and I didn't pass the stop sign even after I was sure there were no cars passing through. I hoped that I could fill your void so I cast my shadow so wide that almost everyone seemed to fit under my wing. When I realized that I could only find your eyes in every pair I looked into, I had to move away from my shadow. That summer you came around I found what it meant to be the worst version of myself and the winter you left I found what it meant to not remember what I ever was before I fell in love with you.

The night that we stood on those steps I begged for an explanation that I wasn't going to get. Spending months searching for the answers in the sky that I could only find from you didn't teach me how I would have to accept that I was never going to find those answers even with me staring you in the face. I've spent too much time sweeping those feeling under the rug until there wasn't any room for the dust that was your memory. I worried about forgetting you but what scared me more is that I was feeling you forget me and it stung a little more everyday. That night, you told me you were "sorry for everything" but I wasn't sure if you knew what everything was and I wonder if to this day you have any idea what everything actually meant. I ask myself what you imagined when you though about "everything" you were sorry for and I wonder if it included me searching for you at the bottom of bottles only to find that I would forget my own name before I could ever forget yours. I wonder if you knew the kind of damage you had caused but then I realized that you never turned around to check. You lived your life through the rear view mirror and so I wondered what would come of the mess that you left behind but then I realized that that mess was me. I had been the cities that you ran down and the buildings that were abandoned. After that night I started to befriend my sadness and I watched my self destruction set in as I listened to you say you loved me for the last time. If I had known it was the last time I was hearing it I would have asked you to say it again to scream it to whisper it to sing it, to mean it. If I knew this was the last time you would look at me the way you did when I realized I was so desperately in love with you I would have stayed a little longer. Since that night, I have yet to hear a sound that is sweeter than the way you spoke and I have yet to see a sight that is more beautiful than the way your eyes lit up under the street lights. That night I knew that the streets would remember our footsteps so I walked a little slower. Now, when I see those streets I notice that the rain has washed out foot prints away and I find that our imprints were only temporary. And when I felt your heart beat I found that it would only beat for me for the remainder of the night so I tried to hold on I tried to memorize the palpation but I'm afraid I've lost it somewhere within the parts of me you tore down. When that night was over I realized I left you with parts of me I thought I needed and I questioned how I could go on without you. When I tried to forget you I forgot who I was along the way and I couldn't win. That night I stood on those steps and I looked into the eyes of someone I thought I knew I rested my worries into the hands of someone I thought I trusted and I let you tear down my walls even though I knew I wouldn't never be strong enough to rebuild them. I can only imagine what you must have thought when you watched parts of me fall through the floor boards of vacant houses and disappear into the universe and I wonder if you can admit to yourself that you took away my armor and sent me into battle with nothing but scrap metal. I hope that when you look back to the night on those steps that you remember the way I fought for you and I hope you can see that I haven't fought for anything since that night.
When I tried to turn my back to you and run I could only find myself walking, thinking that maybe you'd catch up to me someday. Spending months of waiting up for you to come around only taught me that'd I'd be walking forever so I learned to pace myself, because I'd be walking for a long time.