1/ there was a time when you didn’t know my name, or my story, or my birthday, and we sat around thinking about high school and everything grand that was about to happen to us, and how excited we were. and then we went to high school, but nothing really grand ever quite happened, except for meeting each other, and that’s what started it all, i think – when i heard your voice on the very first day of freshman year and knew that i was going to love you someday. i think that’s how it all started. i don’t know how i knew it, but I did – in the pit of my stomach, i knew somewhere that one day, we would spend our whole lives loving each other. our entire lives. in one moment, i saw them, clear as anything, and i knew.
2/ we were fifteen and it was dark. we were inside an empty house, sam’s house, and it was dark, and you were sitting at the piano, and you were playing music that you had written. and something moved inside me, something deep and old and warm, like the very core of the earth was shaping itself to fit inside your pocket.
3/ you forgot my sixteenth birthday. i cried, and you apologized, but then you forgot about that, too.
4/ last september we went to a football game but we decided to explore the woods by the field instead. we were off the trail and hopelessly lost so we laid down then and there and looked up at the sky, and the stars were out. i could feel your breath on my cheek. you saw a shooting star, but i missed it.
5/ you asked me what book i was reading. you smiled and we talked about it, but then the next day, you asked me what book i was reading. and the next day, and the day after that. and you will tomorrow, too, and you'll smile.
6/ it was new years eve and i was sitting next to you on your couch, and my insides were trembling, shaking so violently i knew that you noticed. my heart was pounding, in time with the count-down, the people all around us shouting numbers. five, four, three, two, one – and i turned around and kissed you, for the first time, the minute the old year slid into the new. i kissed you, and that was my resolution – to love you, every day.
7/ last summer, we were outside at a party, and you told me that you couldn’t date anybody because there wasn't time. we went back to the party and we danced, my arms around your neck. i saw a shooting star, but you missed it.
8/ one time, you saw my left wrist, my left forearm, and asked me what had happened. i told you it was my cat, and you said, no, that cats’ claws aren’t so close together. you looked at me, i looked at you, and we never spoke of it again.
9/ there was a time when we were lying on your basement floor, and i was curled up into your side, and you turned me around and you kissed me. and then we were sitting up, a tangle of legs, and you kissed me, the place where my neck joins my shoulder, and you kept kissing me. we went upstairs, to your room, and the house was empty, and you kept kissing me. the house was empty, you were kissing me, and we sank onto your bed, onto the sheets you had slept in since before you had ever known me, or her, or anyone, and we kept kissing, and i kept opening my eyes to look at you because I thought I was asleep.
10/ a time before, i was sitting on the bathroom floor of my parents' house, and i was crying. you called me, words tumbling over words, and my left forearm, my left wrist, was lying on the toilet seat, and your words were climbing down ladders to get to me, and i had to sneak downstairs for the first aid kit, and your words just laid there, useless, as i ripped the wrapper off the gauze.
11/ there are moments. there are moments when you are sitting alone in your room, and the perfect song is playing, and he whispers in your ear: you’ve made me fall for you, that’s what you’ve done. i’ve fallen for you…you and your beautiful mind, body, and soul. there are moments when you know in the pit of your stomach that you'll want nothing but to spend your whole life loving him, your entire life. in one moment, i saw it, clear as anything, and i knew.
I wrote this when I was sixteen, but I just reread it and it is too important to me in my own personal narrative to not post. made some small edits from the original before posting. (the boy in this poem is also the boy in 'august 15' and 'we had one night' -- also many others, but this deals with the beginning of our timeline and those deal with the end so i thought it was important to connect them.)