Meeting you was realizing a story.
The kind of story you tell your children;
The story of why you left your home town.
It's a story of multiple endings,
not a single one making sense.
And when I'm alone,
I will walk to the porch you used to meet me on
and I will relive that story.

I'll tell them I left when I realized this town,
the town I adore,
had nothing left to offer me.
That I outgrew the childhood it gave me.
And I'll know the very reason I left.
It was you. Seeing you. Knowing you were near.
I'll never tell them that.
I'll always know why I had to leave.

The lake that crashes like the ocean,
it's only Sunday evenings with you.
Long drives down the same highway
like I used to drive with you.
The same faces that I see in bonfire light,
one will always be missing.
I had to leave my home town,
one face simultaneously missing and appearing.

I will want to come home.
Stop to see my grandpa's grave on Sundays,
lounge on the deck at my grandma's house.
I'll want to be in the garage with my father,
but I tainted everything with your brevity
thinking it would be permanence.
I will miss my home town,
and all I'll tell my kids is that I outgrew it.

I already miss my home town,
I have not left.