A petal for the day we met
In the choir classroom of our middle school
11 years old
You were so much smaller than me
But your presence was so much larger
You filled my whole world the second we met
You filled every aching hole, every dark crevice
You made me laugh, you made me smile
You made me feel seen in a world I was hollow in my skin
We were young
We were children when we met
We were innocent
We talked about silly things
Of futures and dreams
Of impossibilities and fantasies
Of the intangible and odd
In the back of the choir classroom
Our world was small but we made it endless
In the back of the choir classroom
Our story began

A petal for when you called me for the first time
Years had gone bye since you'd left
It was maybe 8th grade perhaps
You invited me to a birthday party
But I still had my social anxiety
And I was too scared to ask to go
I look back and think how stupid
I should have taken every last opportunity to feel you
To experience you
That phone call came in a time when I was young and blind
When I didn't appreciate the importance
When I didn't know how to be an ally

A petal for when you called again the next week
For when you didn't give up
For when we talked for hours about useless things
That felt like everything
For the night you called and we shared scary stories and I couldn't sleep
For the times we talked and cried together
Laughed and smiled together

A petal for all the phone calls out of nowhere
That saved my life
In high school you started to call again
In a time when I went whole days without a word
To anyone, from anyone
A time when I was so invisible
That I felt that if I faded away, the world wouldn't blink
A phone call from you that saved my life
That made me feel seen
That made me feel needed
That made me remember how to live
I don't remember what you said
I don't remember what we talked about
All I remember was feeling whole again

A petal for those days we reconnected
When we talked every single day in high school
For all our stupid inside jokes
For all the little teases and jabs
For all the weight your words had
For the way you saved my life day by day
And the way you never knew

A petal for the day I fell in love with you
We were talking on the phone one day
I think it was over discord
It wasn't anything important at all
And there were silences and pauses
But every last moment felt so right
I realized against my will
That I loved you
More than I thought I was allowed to
I realized I'd fallen for every subtle thing there was to you
I'd fallen for those phone calls out of nowhere
For your laughs and the smiles in your voice
Your silly impressions and your humor
To the way you listened to me
The way you didn't judge or look down on me
For the way you felt, the way you made me feel
I'd fallen for so many little things
And I've never been able to fall out

A petal for the day I let myself be in love with you
When I realized I couldn't deny the way I felt
When I realized I didn't have to
I remember I was so mad at myself
I felt like I was betraying our friendship, betraying you
Feeling these feelings I wasn't meant to
So I didn't say a word
But I let myself love you
I felt my heart race when I thought of you
I'd check my phone every ten minutes for a notification
Praying that every time the screen lit up
That it would be you

A petal for the day you said you loved me
I remember reading the message
I froze, I malfunctioned, my heart blew up
I left you on read for an hour and i'll always feel bad
Thinking about the nerves you must have had
But when I read those words
I didn't believe them
I couldn't
How could it be real, how could someone like you
Love a person like me?
Did it mean your heart raced like mine
That your face lit up when you read my messages
That you waited for another moment?
Or was it just a joke?
Something cruel the universe wanted to play
Something to break me in a way I've never broken?
When you said that you loved me
I felt solar systems crash down
Stars exploded and I combusted too
Because how could there be a day
Where you said I love you?

A petal for that day
Because when I finally did respond
I felt so happy I could die
When I'd said the words
That I'd so longed to say
When you said you'd felt the same way

A petal for our young love
A petal for all 54 days
That never felt like they were enough
I have so many regrets when I look back
Why did I never call you love?
Why did I never say I loved you every day?
Why didn't I call you sweet nothings?
I hate the way I was so nervous
That I kept keeping it platonic
But I had never loved anyone
The way that I had loved you
I didn't know how to be someone's girlfriend
And I hate the way I thought you needed space
And I tried to give it to you
When what you wanted was someone to talk to
I read the signs wrong, I was a fool
I thought you needed less when you needed more
I didn't know how to show you my love
I didn't know that I could

And so, a petal for the day we broke up
I felt it coming before it did
I knew something was wrong
And I didn't know how to make it right
Even though I know it wasn't because we didn't love each other
I still blame myself for not being what you needed
How could I be a good girlfriend when I wasn't even a good friend?
I remember that day
Because I didn't know that your heart could break
That heartbreak was real
That it felt as painful as it had
That it was a pain that never really went away
My heart wasn't breaking because of you though
It broke for you
It broke for all the ways I felt I failed you
For all the ways I should have loved you

A petal for the day after
For when we were still friends
For when we didn't just end
A petal for how grateful I was
That I could keep you
Even if it was just as friends

A petal for the identity crisis I had
After we broke up
After high school
When I cut my hair and dyed it
When I learned how to do make up
Because maybe I wasn't pretty enough?
When I wanted to be anyone else
Than the me who let you down
For when I tried to like girls instead
Because no other boy could ever be you
For when I painted my nails and wore perfume
Hoping that it would distract me from missing you

A petal for the promises we made
Don't you remember the orange juice pact?
Where we'd have that common goal to live for
To reach for
That when we turned 21 we would meet again
That we'd go to a bar and have a drink
When you said you didn't drink
And I said it didn't have to be alcohol
So we settled on orange juice
Even though you didn't know
That I was allergic
But I'd take a little stomach pain
Just to sit and have a glass of orange juice with you
Any day

A petal for all the calls and messages we've had
For every deep talk
For every time we fell apart
And held one another together like a desperate glue
For all the times I was afraid I couldn't
For all the times you said I could
For all the times I thought I wasn't enough
And for all the times you made me think I was
For all the poems I wrote about you
For all the times I got drunk and thought of you
For the nights I cried wishing things were different for you

A petal for all the things I want to do with you
I want to take you to a concert
To stand in a crowd with you
To a band we maybe don't even know
To feel the rush of the music, the thrill of the night
I want to go on a picnic
Even though you think it'd be miserable
I want to show you how wrong you can be
I want to go to an arcade with you
Win you prizes and kick your *** at shuffleboard
I want to play mario kart with you
So you can see how much of a foul mouth I can have
So you can see the worst of me and love it anyway
I want to play guitar for you
Because I know that even if I play it bad
You'll still smile for me anyway
So I can sing you the songs I wrote
I want to go to conventions and amusement parks with you
So you can hold my hand on rollercoasters while I cry
And maybe laugh a little too
We could eat funnel cake and talk reminisce
We could talk about all the adrenaline
I'd love to go to carnivals too
Into the mirror fun houses
So we could watch each other run into the mirrors
And laugh it off
I could win you prizes
And we could feel the night breeze in our hair
You'd look so lovely under the stars
We could go to painting classes
I could teach you guitar
There are so many things I want to do with you
That I could never list them all

A petal for all the possibilities that we still have

And a petal for my fears
Of losing you
Of all these words
All these memories and dreams
Becoming petals on a grave
A petal for how much I love you
A petal for how I'd never heal
A petal for how much I think you shine
And for all the words I wish I had to make you stay
A petal for everything I would give up
Everything I would sacrifice to make you feel okay
A petal for all the things we haven't done

A petal for our story with no end in sight