I think the hardest thing to remember is that everything ends.

When times are great and I'm lying in your arms its so easy to remember
That you're going to leave.
I count down the minutes until you'll have to get out of my bed, pull on your shorts, pack up your bag,
And go.
Its easy to look at it in terms of time
And know exactly how many seconds I have
Until you leave.

But when the insides of my stomach are clenching and aching,
When there's nothing in the world that can make this pain stop,
It's hard to remember that this too will end.
This time there aren't a set number of minutes to count down,
But it will pass.

My friends tell me, "He wasn't good enough for you"
My roommate says, "There's only so many times he can make you cry before I write him off."
My mom says "You've been down lately honey.  Is everything okay?"
I start to perk up and think, You're right. I'm glad he's leaving.
Only a few more minutes.

I follow up with telling them that my psychic says I haven't met the love of my life yet.
I don't yet know the man I'll marry,
Which makes me feel better.
And then she says, "Have you seen her recently? How do you know?"
And I'm back to tallying the minutes left in my misery.

Its hard to remember that this pain will subside
That it will stop hurting so badly.
That I will stop thinking about you every moment of every day.

But then take me back to the flip side where things were perfect.
When we spent our first night together-
The build up,
The flirting,
The giggling-
To when we were finally in your bed, locked in each others arms
And you said to me, "This isn't going to be a one time thing."
Even then, I knew our time was limited.

I know eventually I will leave your bed permanently in the morning
To go back to my place.
And I know eventually my life will continue on without you in it.
Without our fingertips locked around each others.
But its hard to remember that
Its hard to want that.

And now you're leaving
And I so badly want to say the things
That you're not supposed to say to the guy you're *******.
Will you ever talk to me again?
Can I still text you 24 hours a day?
Can I have your address?
Can I call you?
Do you want to call me?
Can we talk about doing more?
Can we talk about visiting?
I don't want to get a drink or coffee when I happen to be in town.
I want to visit for you.

But I'm afraid those are going to end things even quicker.
I know its going to end.  That's not the question.
I just want to hold out for as long as possible
With my fingers caught in your hair,
With your arm grasping my waist,
With our texts stretching late into the nights when we can't be together.

Maybe someday we'll meet in some city
And get that drink or coffee I want more than
And rekindle this flame (5 years?).
Maybe I'll text you one too many times
And you'll stop responding (6 months?).
Or maybe we'll meet other people
And forget about our short moment of bliss (1 year?).

Until then I will continue to tally how many minutes have passed
And I have left to suffer
Until something, someone, fills this aching hole
Until there is a happier ending.

I knew I was going to marry you
the first time we said good-bye.
It didn't feel like forever
(although I cried like it was).

I have this reoccurring dream
where I'm sitting in a bar
surrounded by my work friends
talking way too much shop for
a Saturday evening on the town.
You come right over to me
like we've been planning to meet here all along,
and coo, "Hi honey, long time no see."
You hug me so hard I want you to squeeze me
out of this life
to escape with you.

I have this other dream,
(not unlike ones most girls have
about their wedding days)
only mine isn't like theirs-
all planned out except for the man.
The only thing I have figured out
is you and the color of my dress.

We keep saying, "Not the right time.
Not the right place in our lives"
and I know its at least ten years off
for me.
And my psychic says I've never met the man I'll marry
but I think that's just because I met you so young
and we both have a lot of changing left to do.

You left me for your girlfriend today.

I feel filthy
as if I have gone back packing
and haven't bathed in two weeks, but
I know no spigot can clean this away.

I feel guilty
even though I didn't know
she was even someone in your life
worth knowing,
but even then I still knew
something.

I even resigned to apologies
because I'm sick of feeling
like it's me,
and you use poetry to calm me,
which seduces me even more.
"I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."

I want to poetry back at you
because the conversation
was just as good as the ***,
and I want to scream,
because I've done it again,
home-wrecking at it's finest,
but I know where this story ends.
*(I've read it one too many times.)

I think I'm supposed to feel bad about what happened,
but I don't.
I think I'm supposed to hate myself
and blame it on the usual shortcomings,
but I don't want to.
I'm smart, pretty, and sophisticated
(you agreed).
I can be loud, blunt, and occasionally a bit
obnoxious,
but I can't seem to find the words to tell you
that I enjoyed it, you.
Your life story is interesting,
your insecurities are shocking,
and the *** was fabulous.

“Just write,” they told me.  And I did.
My smooth cursive running over
each ****** page.
I wrote run-on sentences
without any punctuation that ran on for days without
a single breath of air and when I finished
I spleled wrods wrnog
and didn’t even try to fix them.

Then I began to write about you,
and no matter how hard I tried to stop,
the words flowed out of me
like they were meant to be on paper all along.

I wrote of the time you dragged me to your beach house
on Long Island
even though I was sick and miserable.  
You lay in bed with me all weekend until finally
I made it out to the beach.  
I went home sicker and redder than I had been before.
But you loved me anyway.  

I wrote of the time when we tried to drive across the country,
but we got bored somewhere around Harrisburg.  
Aunt Jay’s Pancake House made the trip worthwhile.  
I can still taste your buttery pancakes and
my gooey French toast on my lips.  
I wish we could go back there just one more time.

I wrote of the day you said goodbye-
the first time that is.
I didn’t get out of bed for three weeks,
you know,
wondering why you even called to see if I was ok.
When I finally pulled myself up and out
of the stuffy, black room
I was surprised the sun was still rising
and the world was continuing on without
us.

I wrote of the day you said goodbye-
the second time.
You didn’t call this time
or write
or give one sign that you were hurting so badly.
I could have fixed you.
I could have loved your pain away.

“Just write,” they told me, “And all of your pain will disappear.”
They don’t understand, though.
I’m not worried about my pain.
I want to go back and write away yours.