I only cry when I think of you

I don't cry when I talk about my childhood trauma
Of the times I'd been let down, berated or broken
When I was shut down and shunned
When I felt mute and voiceless
When I felt alone and empty
I don't cry until I talk about you
About how I loved you, and how I'll never stop

I've been hurt before you
I've been hurt again after you
But it's interesting how there is a before and after you
As if that's how I divide my life
Divide the way I feel

When I think about you
I think about the day we met 10 years ago
In the choir classroom of our middle school
In the karaoke homeroom
We were young, ridiculous and open
We were outcasts who saw eachother
We were outcasts who were seen for the first time

I never felt like I had to hide from you
I never had to pretend to be someone I was not
I think about how we would laugh and smile with eachother
How we almost felt like we had an us vs them against the world
I think about how I loved you before I knew what love was

I think about everytime you called me and your voice
Somehow always seemed to save me
As if you knew every tear before they fell
Years and years, but you never stopped calling
And I suppose, I never stopped waiting
I never stopped answering

I think about the days we were together
When we reconnected in highschool
When we fell in love
How I can read our entire relationship through texts
How I can hurt myself and heal myself over and over
Like a wound that never heals, never scars
I think about how desperately I wished I didn't love you
How wrong it makes me feel being unable to let you go

I think of how you taught me what it meant to be loved
And what it meant to love

I think about how I'm alright with being your friend
With never showing you my writing
With never telling you how much I've loved you
I think about how I'm satisfied
With knowing I will never be more
And how it is worth it and I don't know why

I think about growing up
Of growing farther away from those memories
Farther away from the choir classroom
Farther away from the phone calls out of nowhere
Farther away from a version of you who loved me
And I realized I'll never grow away from the me who loves you

I only cry when I think of you
When I'm sober, when I'm not
And it's never a tear of hurt
Not from something you'd done
Nor from something you'd said
But from all the things I wish you did
From all the things I wish I could
For all the poetry you may never see
For all the love you'll never know

I only cry when I think of you
Because I love you when I know
That I should be able to let you go