I came here to work on an assignment I put off;
I figured it would be quiet and I could get things done.

But in the quiet I watched crimson leaves
dancing in the rain as the wind would let them,
and I remembered when we did the same.

And I thought about just how much
a change in the weather can do to shatter relationships
and wished for the thousandth time
that summer never came
and graduation never happened
and you never left.

I didn't need the sun anymore—
you were my Apollo—
but you knew how much I loved the moon,
and you shone too brightly in my eyes
for me to see it anymore.

And I'm thanking you forever
for bringing back the stars.
There's nothing more important in my life.
But it's a tricky kind of gratitude
because part of me is pleading
for another eclipse,
for you to block everything out again,
but just for a moment.

So I can remember what it's like
to feel the warmth of the sun
while we're standing in the rain.

We did really well this time.
It was the longest we'd gone
without one of us messing it up—
I was proud.
But now I've decided
these record-breaking few months
should really be the nice note
that we end on.
Cause both of us are performers,
not composers,
and we can play the parts just fine,
but as soon as the background music falters
and it's our turn to take charge,
and use the opportunity to shine,
we falter, too, and back out of
the spotlight that's begging us to take a chance.
So it's the last time
that I'm running backstage.
I'm seizing this chance
to conduct for once,
and I'm getting the feeling
you're just waiting for the song to end too.
................................................................­...................
Don't worry.
The decrescendo will be as fast as possible.

You've both read through dozens
of midnight thoughts poured into poems
that hardly even apply to your lives,
and maybe once or twice a few
that I've written about you.

But there's never been one to you,
and honestly there should.
Poets better than myself
should be writing about the both of you.

Because at the end of the day
(you're another day older, and)
you're the ones
who have stayed with me
through every single one
of my conscious, deliberate mistakes
and also the ones
that I never meant to make—
and every moment when
the only thing I've been was a burden,
you've put up with me;
you've never loved me less
(though there were times you really should have)
and I couldn't be more grateful for that.

Everybody told me that I needed to be careful—
that people can be fake,
and best friends in high school
never really means forever.
But I know that even if
a time comes when we can't be as close as right now,
you'll both remain parts of me
that will stay my entire life;
collections of stories in memory books
that I'll keep on the coffee table of my mind,
right between a picture of how we looked the night of senior prom
and the invitations to both of your weddings.

I couldn't have ever in a million years
asked for more amazing best friends—
that feel a lot more like sisters most of the time
and are more important than
any other relationship with anyone
I'll ever have in my entire life.

And I know that I'm more
than a little bit hard to love
a lot of the time
and that I should say this way more often,
but I love you both so much more
that I could ever convey with words in a poem.
(But, as you both know,
that's the only way I know how to express things.
So until a better way comes along,
this is my placeholding "I love you"
for forever and beyond.)

"I've never been in love," you said,
one night when I shouldn't
have been talking to you at all.

                 "Yeah, I don't think I have either"
                           was all I could think to say.

  But under the stars
in the place we called ours
        there wasn't anywhere else
             I'd ever have wanted to be.

And I know my pulse quickened
        because I could feel it moving
                   faster
   on the tips of my fingers
        where my hand met yours.

When you looked me in the eyes that night,
                    I hope you could tell
                    I was lying.