When you're young, you push.
You push and you push –
The rules, your parents, yourself –
Your friends, even.
You push the limits of your mind, your heart, your body
(especially your body, because it's invincible.
You're made of steel; you're ten feet tall.)
You push buttons
(the good and bad kind)
(and the kind that never pop back up)
You learn the limites and then you still keep testing them.
Break a rule, break two, break ten.
Get caught, get punished, then repeat.

Never stop.
Never stop until you're ****** and broken on the floor
(screaming his name into your pillow every night)
You don't stop until there's great, big chunks missing
(ice cream scoops out of your brain)
(scars that won't fade with time)
(memories that you can't stop dreaming about)
And even then –

Even then you lay in bed thinking of the nights you can only barely remember
(the night he kissed you the first time)
(the night you saw God in a storm cloud)
(the night you realized life would never be this beautiful again)
(the night you felt your soul preparing for lift off)
and you know it was the right thing to do