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

You finally learn the curve of the palm of his hand, after all this time
And after all this time, you're not even excited about it anymore.
You finally learned how to fight without crying, after thousands of tears,
And after thousands of tears, you're still wishing for more.

You aimed to learn everything about this person,
But now that you know everything the mystery is gone.

You start thinking about how short nails might feel on your back,
How green eyes might look next to yours,
How an accent might make you tremble,
How stubble might itch or tickle,
How something besides missionary on stolen afternoons would make you moan,
How shots with someone's hand on your thigh might sting less,
How cheap cologne might fill your lungs,
How your clothes might fall differently,
How it would be if it was someone entirely new.

Losing those familiar phrases in hazy cigarette smoke memories,
forgetting the touches and kisses and promises shared at 3am,
moving away from "this is where we first kissed"
and toward "this is where we last kissed"

You don't even know if you'll have the same haircut tomorrow,
or the same job next year,
or the same best friend,
the same bedsheets,
the same goldfish.
So how do you know what "forever" feels like?