You and I played a funny game.
Like the sun and moon.
We knew that our existence was never destined at the same time.
Yet we tried to cross paths, somehow.

Beauty ran through your veins like a river.
Anything you touched was effected by your elegance.
So then why when you touch me,
I feel your hands become cold,
And the beauty fade away?

You and I used to stay up until the break of day just looking at each other through that tiny phone screen. When did those stares become blank ones on the street? When did all those memories become just that? Memories. I feel like a fool to believe you still love me because you’ve told three others that, too. I know I’m smarter than this. To fall for this all over again. But they say ignorance is bliss, right? You were once my bliss. Whatever happened to that little house in the woods where we would lay around all day listening to music and falling even more in love? Or the two kids we’d already named? So tell me, do you still love me or am I just wasting my time?

Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. Lives lost, bonds made.
Wreckage, heartbreak, turmoil, destruction. Questions. Pleas.
Heaven and Hell. Shock. Dismay. Loss and hospital. Sirens.
Help. Help. HELP!
Goodbye, goodbye.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m going to die; I’m going to die!”
Crumble from the south.
Crumble from the north.
Smoke, rubble, lives.
Run!
Silence
Open mouth, tears.
Questions, calls.
“Are you okay?”
“Hello?”
“I love you.”
“Be safe.”
Cops, fire trucks, ambulances.
Terror.
Terror.
Terror.
Goodbye.

I’ve thought about what I would do if I could go back to that moment when I decided I was in love with you. What I would do in that moment if I knew where I’d be a year and a half later. Mostly it depends of the mood I’m in. I hear “Only Love” by Ben Howard play or drive past that school and I wouldn’t change a thing. I would do it all over again. On the other hand, if I go into that gym or go into that movie theatre, I would change everything. You helped me love new things and hate old ones. You hurt me, and for that, I’ll never forgive you. But you also taught me how to love life and not to waste time, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

I don’t know what attracted me to you. Maybe it was the way you said my name. You didn’t say it with that Southern twang like the people around here. Maybe it was the subtle “hey” you gave me when we first met. We knew who each other were but we were too nervous to say anything else. Maybe it was the passion you had in your eyes when you were doing what you loved. I’d never found passion exciting in another person until I saw it burning inside you. All in all, I think it was how I barely knew you and I wanted to. You were like a story that only I could write. You were like a book only for my eyes. Oh, boy, I was ready to read every page.