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.

This is a poem
about the day we first met,
and how you'd always say you knew
before even talking to me
that we'd get along.

This is a poem
about the book I was reading on day two,
and how you made fun of me
because some of the pages
still had pictures.

This is a poem
about your nickname,
and how I always thought it suited you
since it reminded me
of coffee mugs.

This is a poem
about your eyes,
and how they'd crinkle at the corners
and sparkle a lot
whenever you laughed.

This is a poem
about your laugh,
and how even though it was way too loud
it always sounded
a lot like music to me.

This is a poem
about a leather chair,
and how we'd always argue
over who got to sit in it
but ended up sharing anyway.

This is a poem
about my first kiss,
and how it took you way too long
to pick up on subtleties
but you made up for it pretty well.

This is a poem
about your beat-up Camry,
and how whenever I'd ask you
where we were driving this time
you'd only ever say "forward" or "adventure."

This is a poem
about clichés,
and how whenever I'm describing you
they're the only thing that comes to mind
even though I know it's lame.

This is a poem
about the first time I fell in love,
and how through everything that happened
I couldn't have asked for
a better first than you.

This is a poem
about the church parking lot,
and how the way you said goodbye
made me feel literally sick
and I didn't think the hurt would go away.

This is a poem
about you,
and how I can't still imagine myself
with anyone more amazing
than everything you were.

This is a poem
about us,
and how the ending came too soon
but I still wouldn't dare go back
to ever change a single moment.

Sometimes I try
to write about you
and I want to add
a line, something like
"and this is the last poem
I'll ever write for you."

But I know I can't ever do that.
You and I both know
I'd never be able
to truthfully say that.
Because if I'm being honest,
I'll always be writing about you.
I'll always be writing to you.
Your first love is the poem
you never ever stop writing.
I'll always be revising that poem,
always adding verses;
and of course it can never be perfect,
but in a way that's why it's beautiful.

So that's what you are to me—
the poem I'll always be writing,
revising,
rearranging,
living.
It'll always start with and come down to you.
The poem I'll carry around with me
in the little notebook I call my heart,
with scribbles in the margins
and notes to myself between stanzas.
You're the poem I'm going to reference
in every single other thing I write.
You're the crumpled piece of paper
pulled out of the back pocket of my memories
whenever anyone asks about the first time.
You're the ink in my pen
as it hits the paper
and you're every word I write with that ink.

And as far as first drafts go…
I'm really happy with what you gave me to work with.

I gave you my heart
and you gave me your own
after school sometime in early spring.

I found my best paintbrush
and in a few careful strokes,
I put my name on your heart
in my best calligraphy.
You pulled out an object
I was all too familiar with
and placed the blade against my heart.
Then you pressed down,
and I don't think you realized
but when you wrote your name
it sunk in deeper than I think you meant to,
and you ended up carving your name
into my heart.

Then you handed it back to me,
and asked for your own,
so I had to return it,
paint strokes and all.
Soon enough you had managed
to wipe off all the calligraphy
and your heart was good as new.

I wish you had made it so easy for me.

I've given up by now
on trying to fill the space
where your name has been engraved.
I've accepted, I guess,
that you'll stay there forever.

But I have yet to
get used to the inscription,
and I want you to know
that next time,
you should really use a paintbrush.

Carving with a knife hurt a lot more.

It might be tough,
but I don't mind.

Cause I'm all yours
if you're all mine.

I've something to tell you,
but no idea how to say it.
Especially when I'm not even
completely sure what "it" is.
My first thought was a painting
(a picture's worth a thousand words, you know)
but I quickly learned that
not even a thousand was enough.
I wasn't quite able to convey
simply through brush strokes
the feeling in the pit of my stomach
(like a dropping rollercoaster,
but much more thrilling)
whenever you smile at me.
Just a few pencil marks
couldn't ever communicate
the fireworks that ignite
as soon as our fingers touch.
And I've heard other people
try to explain in only words
the way this feels
(the closest we've gotten are the letters l-o-v-e)
but I'm not sure if even
the world's greatest poets
would be able to accurately portray this—
let alone me, with my little notebook
and my twelve-cent ballpoint pen.
But I need you to know
that even if I can't describe it to you,
there's something about 'us'
that makes me happier than I've ever been.

I saw you a few minutes ago
and you were laughing (and I had to laugh too)
but you didn't really look at me at all
yet it was way too hard to not look at you
and I have no idea how to explain
exactly how that moment felt
but I thought about your smile again
(and I had to smile too)
but then really fast I stopped
because the you that was just smiling
in the lobby of the building where we first kissed
was you exactly how you were six months ago
but somehow I couldn't see myself in your life anymore
and it wasn't like before
when I knew of course that I wasn't in your life anymore
but it was like I knew I wasn't
and I couldn't even see how it made sense
that I ever had been at all
and then I felt like crying
and I'm not even sure why
but I picked everything up
and I left right away
and now I'm upstairs
in the middle of the chair where we first kissed
and nothing feels the same
but I don't know how it's different
because I don't remember how it felt before
and now you're really quickly fading
from the person I thought was perfect
and couldn't believe was mine
(and then couldn't believe I had lost)
to another senior boy
who does his homework
in the lobby of the building where I go too
who barely even knows who I am
and wouldn't think twice
if he didn't say a word to me all year
and I don't want you to be that
(as in I need you to not be that)
but I don't know how to tell you
because it's already too late
and my thoughts aren't organizing themselves well
(as in this is probably my worst poem ever)
but I'm so shaken up
just by sitting near you
as you were laughing
and I don't know what's happening
but I hate what it's doing to me
and really all I want
is to have whatever I'm missing back
but I don't even remember what it was anymore.

I had always been really excited
to be able to share an autumn with you.
(I was naïve to assume we'd even get past summer,
but) I absolutely couldn't wait for you and I
to try and name the exact colors
of the leaves we picked off the ground,
and I couldn't wait
to borrow your sweaters
(as if they could have kept me
any warmer than your hugs would)
and to kiss you while
the taste of our last lattes
were still on our lips.
I had wanted to read Thoreau
in the corner of the library,
right next to you
as you tried to perfect your journalism assignment
and not be able to focus on my book
because your thoughtful expression
was far too adorable not to distract me.

(I was right; you look best in fall colors.
But it's stopped being my place
to tell you things like that anymore.)

For all the months we spent together, you only kissed me once. You tasted like spearmint gum, and like the burst of laughter you held back between our lips, and it was a "to be continued" kind of kiss. Every time after that we were picking up where we left off—extensions of that first kiss in March, extra pages to extra chapters to extra volumes in the story of you and me. You were a library book, one I hadn't read before. And in the back of my mind I knew you wouldn't be mine forever. But you were new and you were exciting and I couldn't wait for the next time I could open you up and be reminded how much I loved the taste of spearmint.

But sooner or later it was going to have to end. I knew this, I knew it, I really did; I just told myself if I didn't think about it it wouldn't happen. It did happen though. Sure enough, the due date to my library book came around—way too fast. I was almost sure that I had you for much longer, and for that reason I didn't even get to read the ending of the story. But I had to return all of the kisses and the laughter and the gum…as well as giving up all of the ones I hadn't gotten to yet, because I had had no idea when the words "the end" were going to be coming up.

And so the next time you kissed me, our second official kiss, I hadn't expected so much of a plot twist. I had finally renewed my library book, but my favorite character died, and the villain turned himself in, and the hero and the girl he loved were falling apart. You had stopped chewing spearmint gum, and the laughter was gone—replaced with the bitter taste of self-doubt and uncertainty. I pulled away faster than I expected, suddenly nervous and not sure why. I closed the book and handed it back to you, with the ending I had wished so desperately to be able to read, but not the one I had expected at all.

Once
I built a sandcastle
and showed it to
the ocean.
I had made sure
that every detail was
perfect—
working as hard as I could
to keep it safe,
because all I ever wanted was
for it to last long.

The waters hardly noticed,
they were far too concerned
with their own purposes
to even bother
with my effort.
When they crashed at my feet,
it sent the best kind of chills up my spine—
but that only happened
if it was convenient for them.
They'd never go out of their way
just to find their way
to me.

Sometimes I would try
to go out to them,
wanting the seafoam
to rush over my toes
and the cold spray
to splash into me.

But sometimes they didn't come.

The waves went back out
and wanted nothing to do with me.

The next day
I returned to the ocean.
What I found was that
in a matter of hours,
the waves I had
loved so much
had taken the chance
to destroy.
The sandcastle that
I'd worked so *******
was completely gone,
without a trace,
nothing to show for it.
You wouldn't even know that I'd
tried in the first place.

You and the ocean have a lot in common.

"Kids can be mean," they said.
"Kids can be immature."
They told us that kids can
do things they normally wouldn't
without really thinking things through.
They didn't warn us, though,
that those same kids
would smile at you in the halls
and treat you like a friend
when you were face to face.
They never warned us
that kids would be cruelest
when they could hide behind
the mask of the word "anonymous"
and walk away, totally blameless.
We weren't ever told
that the harshest things said to us
would be from kids we thought liked us—
and we'd never even know which "friends"
we're saying things to hurt us.

"Kids can be mean," they said,
"but they won't really mean it.
It's just being swept up in the mindset
that acceptance will come from
judging those that are being judged."

And they sometimes tried to tell us,
but so few of us listened…
the power we have
to stop the kids ganging up on kid
is just as strong
as the power we have to start it.

I love the fact
that I get to see you
in ways nobody else
has ever been able to see.
Like the way you laugh
when I feel like being silly
or the hardness in your jawline
after just fighting with your mom
of the flash of mischief in your eyes
right before you kiss me.
I get to see the side of you
that still acts like you're five years old
and brightens immediately
as we run towards a playground.
I notice the aura you have,
as if the air around you
was scattered with flakes of gold.
I get to feel the rush
of your breath on my neck
whenever you're right behind me—
and when it feels like everything in me is empty,
I can know the safety
of being encircled in your arms.
And nobody else
sees these things quite like I can,
because nobody else will ever love you the exact same way.

When I was young and lonely,
yet wise enough,
I'd slipped off my skin and held it out to you
and you accepted it. I'd been left with bare bones, then.
And as I handed over my lips and eyebrows and fingernails,
You accepted those, too.
Next I'd slipped out my heart and offered you it,
But you refused to take it, and so
I'd realised I was left without a coat
in the cold winter's blight.
Nothing but a skeleton, as frostbite
bit at me and I'd stood shivering,
my skin in your hands,
my heart in mine.
The wind hit my back and sent through me shudders
and I pleaded for you to give back what had once been mine.
But you just stood with eyes like glass, and wordlessly
you let me know it was helpless.
One by one, I felt my bones begin to freeze
from my toes and swiftly traveling up.
I couldn't tell then if my shaking came from cold
or if it was the blizzard of emotions burying me.
At my fingertips I could sense
the heart which I still cradled in my hands start to grow rigid
and it's beating grew ever more mechanical,
losing all energy and life,
working routinely and with passion gone.
Time stopped altogether and we stood, unmoving.
A fleeting warmth, a single hot tear—
it barely left my eye before becoming solid.
And the silence broke with the sound of your footsteps
but there I stayed in stunned paralysis,
my eyes locked on the remains of me
that you had ****** at my feet
and the cold heart I still held.
I picked myself up and slipped me back on,
the same as I had been before.
But my heart I kept frozen, though now it's aware
and I won't make that misstep again.
With a heart not my own, I'll continue,
untrusting—
the only part of you I let myself keep.

I inked your name
all over my body
until every inch of me
had traces of you,
as you claimed every new part of me—
my attention, my mind,
and finally my heart—
until you had me in my entirety
and every word I said
echoed with the sound of you.
Every new promise I tattooed
onto my skin
with invisible ink
so it could only be seen
to you
who knew every detail of me
like you knew your own
ambitions,
like you knew your own reflection.
And the ghost of your hands remained
everywhere that I
had welcomed them.
And soon those ghosts
found a way
to sink deeper than the surface
as all the promises and fingerprints
and your name,
over and over,
were sent into my bloodstream
and overtook every part
of who I had been.
Until finally I couldn't even
recognize myself
buried under the things
you had taken
and rearranged forever
as I was writing
the same five letters
behind every word my hand formed.
And as more of me was lost
to the cells of you
hidden throughout my veins,
you took more steps
further away
until the only evidence
you had even been here
was your name,
over and over,
inked into my heartbeats
and whispering repeatedly
from every single thing
I'd written of love.

it's 2AM and I can't sleep
because once again you've found a way
to sneak into my dreams
through the back door
and appear when I don't expect you
in the depths of my subconscious
to make me fall
time and time again
for the danger in your smile
and the gentleness in your eyes.
you've occupied every corner of my mind
so that anything and everything
can remind me of you
and send me reeling backwards
on a tidal wave that I've created
and let grow
until the only thing I can think about
is the tsunami of you
that knocks me down ceaselessly
and holds me under so breathing is
impossible
and never lets go of me
as it tells me letting go
is the only thing that can
get me out alive.