we meet by accident, just kids, dandelions growing under our feet
everything bright and new, scrubbed clean
and even the moon, born again in the sky every night
sings to us, like it knows.
you run after trains and kiss me on porches
and i begin the slow, delicious process
of weaving myself into your hair.
every starlit night, every car ride
with the windows rolled down,
every night parked for hours in my driveway
kissing, bruising, touching
and later, the phone calls
i-miss-you-we’ll-make-it-work
studying and going to class
and doodling your name in the margins,
all of it, all of it
including sitting at the top of the library stairs
when you tell me it is over,
including the train ride in which
you say there is someone else,
including pressing my face into my hands
and sobbing on the ferry, months later,
because you say you love her.
we meet by accident, and it is the most beautiful kind:
full of shock and pain
and love and hope
and no, i wouldn't trade any of it,
even though i’m still picking pieces of myself off the floor,
even though
one look from you is still enough
to send my blood
in a spiral,
even now, after all this time

so maybe
i’m just trying to say thank you.
maybe that’s how this ends.