I keep the pocket watch you gave me,
and it's still ticking,
ticking.

It's there beneath the pictures
with ripped edges and thumbprints on the gloss,
where I'm smiling straight into the flash
and you, you're just looking at me,
like you didn't know someone could be so happy
in a cramped booth that smelled like
asphalt and felt like 50's music.

It's there next to the pressed flowers
with missing petals and broken stems,
the ones you gave me the day before Valentine's,
because you wanted them to bloom but
they bloomed a day late, and you
waited for them til midnight because you refused
to believe that teenage romance
doesn't have to be punctual.

It's there in the old shoebox
with the missing cover and faded paint on the sides,
that I kept all the postcards in,
from all the times you went away and said
you missed me,
and I couldn't write back because
I remembered you said that my words are my heart
and I was scared
to write poems about forever.