i've been thinking a lot about regrets lately.

i know it's because time is running out,
i know it's because i'll never see you
again. i know it's because there's
a forest fire raging green
through these tired smiles.
i know it's because those baby blues
have been drooping heavier
each day and yet no one seems to see.
i know it's because each time
i look at you, i'm paralyzed with
could-have's and maybe's.
i know it's because each time you
open your mouth, i think
"this is the last time i'll hear him
sing, talk, laugh, tell stories,
mumble and scream and be happy."
i know it's because each of those
seventeen muscles it takes to smile
at you in hopes you'll smile back
weigh a ton apiece. i know
it's because you don't know where you
want to go to college and i keep hoping
you'll end up where i want to be, even if
it means i run away should i see you there.
i know it's because i wear more perfume
every day in hopes it might send
signals to your brain and cause a
change of mind, a change of heart.
i know it's because i hear you
in every lyric and i'm poisoned by
these scenarios and worlds of paradise
i dream up in the middle of flipping a page,
writing notes, reading the same page
thirty times in a row until the words are
reduced to stains across every page.
i know it's because i watch you move
and see grace where you see bumbling,
steady feet. i know it's because i
can picture meeting you again years in the future.

i've been thinking about regrets and there
are a thousand, each one another pound
pushing me forward, as if
i can redeem myself by walking a million
miles. but my biggest is when i convinced
my heart that telling you would have
consequences that i could not bear.