Isn't it something? How everything lines up just so. Their car and your car. You never stop to think how miraculous an eight-sided piece of red metal is until it could have turned back the hands of time. We would have stopped. They would have gone straight. no police cars, no ambulances, no fire trucks. No crying mothers and no worried lovers. No blood. No bruises. No nothing. And somehow, this reminds you of him. Somehow, years later, everything still reminds you of him. Loose change or a rainy day or a slow song. The collision of everything. So what. So you are sitting on the side of an unfamiliar country road six feet deep in a cornfield. The windshield is shattered. You don't remember the air bags going off, but they did. Everyone says there are signs. As many sleepless nights you spent trying to go back and find them you always come away empty handed. The officers are asking, at what point did you know you were going to hit their car? you feel your heart tugging at your chest, reminding you of the night you asked him when it was that he fell out of love with you. The officer doesn't understand. Nobody understands. All anyone wants is an answer. As if it's ever that simple. Back to this stop sign. How a handful of seconds could have prevented everything. How a little more love could have saved us. How I loved you until there was nothing left but bones and skin and how it still wasn't enough. How I stretched myself thin and how I still couldn't reach you. I cannot remember the moment of impact. I do not know why you stopped loving me. all I know, is that it happened.

I lied.
A long, long time ago you asked me what my favorite color was. When things were new and clean and easy. Still dancing around in the getting to know you stages. Some days I swear, years later, I am still just getting to know you. But that's besides the point. The point is I lied. You asked me what my favorite color was and I said red. Red is okay, I guess, but red? Plain red, Crayola red, the tin lunchbox your mother bought you for your first day of school red, isn't me.
I always liked blue. Blue anything. Ocean blue, not a cloud in the sky blue, so many clouds in the sky it's almost actually gray blue, the eye color I always wanted blue, favorite shirt blue, toilet bowl cleaner blue, internalized depression blue, art museum walls blue. Blue. I liked blue.
But here I am, saying to you without hesitation that my favorite color is red. And you say that yours is green. You're going on about how our favorite colors are Christmas colors and I am wondering when it was that I decided I needed to be someone other than myself around you.
Many years later, too many years, I am driving down Main Street with a parade of stop lights ahead of me. The colors are doing that thing when my eyes blur them out of focus. Red, green, green, red, red, green. To stop or to go. Part of me is thinking how fascinating it is that we have programmed our brains to subconsciously associate colors with actions and the bigger part of me is thinking about you. And somehow I find this is always the case with everything. As many times as we are next to each other in my line of vision we can never be together. I am talking about the stop lights but I am thinking about us. Green and red can never be on the same stop light at the same time. As soon as I leave, you show up. And it's got me thinking about how we were never really on the same page. How it's taken me this long to realize that no matter how badly either of us may have wanted it, we can never exist together.

it still hurts in a way that's hard for you to explain to those who have never had to live every day knowing there are still pieces of your heart stuck inside someone else's chest. so what. so you still wear his old t-shirts to bed even though you know you should have thrown them out months ago, there are texts and photos on your phone that you can't bring yourself to erase no matter how many tears streak your face or how many times your heart breaks all over again. every single day you think of calling him, but only certain days are bad enough for you to actually contemplate it: days that used to be important and hold value - his birthday, your birthday, your anniversary, holidays - but then the obvious days turn into days where it hurts so deep that you look for reasons to call; it's raining and you want to say hey, remember that time we were in Sandusky and it thunderstormed so hard our whole hotel shook and lightening illuminated Lake Erie? remember how I was so scared, and you held me all night long? or when it's midnight and you throw on his old clothes even though they stopped smelling like his cologne an eternity ago, their cotton hasn't touched his skin in months but you wear them anyway because you resonate with that feeling, and you think of calling just to say that you wish you could feel him one last time. you do. you wish you could drive to his house again, you still know the way so well you could do it with your eyes closed, sneak up to his bedroom and crawl into bed with him even though you both complained it was too small for two people, you wish you could zip your fingers together like an old jacket, familiar and warm, you wish you could bury your face into his chest and smell his skin again, feel his lips kiss the top of your head as if this constituted saying I love you, I missed you out loud. the truth is you're more than well aware any combination of these things are very unlikely to ever occur, but that doesn't stop you from wishing, from picking up stray pennies or blowing out everyone else's birthday candles. do you remember the first time you saw a shooting star. how you were with him and how it felt a little like fate. you want to call him and tell him that you've never been so broken. that you believe you can go backward, because you don't see a forward that you like. but you can't. so instead you keep his name buried underneath your tongue. you don't cry when you miss him because no one understands it anymore; too much time has passed. get over it already. you keep his sweaters warm inside your dresser drawers and you wash the sheets weekly because they smell like someone else now. the bed never stops feeling empty. there are eight stop lights between your house and his, and this distance has never looked more red.

I am sitting across from you in a small diner booth over two cups of coffee that neither of us are drinking. you can't drink because you're too busy talking and I can't drink because my mouth has been frozen shut ever since we walked through the door. this silence feels more familiar than you do anymore. and when did you start ordering coffee? when did I? who are we now and how did we get here? how did it come to this? how did we let it come to this? how many nights did you spend fighting sleep because you couldn't stop thinking of me, wondering how I was doing or if I'd managed to stitch myself back together yet. how many nights. your mouth is still moving but I'm unable to hear what it is that you're saying. these words don't matter. they hold no weight at all. now you're apologizing. for what, I want to ask, but there are a million and one things you have to be sorry for, none of which you are. instead of I'm sorry it was always it's a joke, lighten up or you know I didn't mean it. I know. you didn't mean anything you said to me. I guess I'm crying now because your hand is reaching over the table to touch my cheek and your eyes are doing the thing where you look completely caught off guard. not sympathetic, just confused. I can't remember why we came here. why did we come here? how long has it been? you look different now, distant and not in love with me anymore. I don't like this view. I want to ask you if we can go back. you wouldn't know what I mean. you never do. did. sorry. I love you. I want to grab you by your shoulders and shout into your soul that I love you - that I've always loved you - that I never stopped and I never will. what are we doing here? then it happens. you reach for your pocket and my heart stops inside my chest as you extract the black box. the people around us probably think this is a proposal. I know better. your mouth moves again and your lips frame her name and the date and you're sorry but I'm not invited. and everything stops. it was supposed to be me. my white dress and your black tie and my father's hands shaking yours and my mother fixing my veil and my walk down the aisle and your vows in my ear. mine. my dress my day my church my life my you. you're saying you are sorry but you're not. it's something else. it's guilt. it's regret. it's the fact that we both know this is not how things were supposed to end up but here we are. cold cups of coffee and empty hearts. how did this happen how did we get here how did it come to this how
how did we let it come to this

Lately I've been busy trying not to
fall in love with you
trying not to notice how undeniably right
it feels to be right here, right now
how easy it is
pretending not to know
how utterly effortless it would be
to love you

So instead I force the thought
of the inevitable end
the part where you can't even look me
in the eye as you're leaving
you don't even say goodbye
and almost just as my heart managed
to stitch itself back up
it breaks all over again
the deja vu is sickening

While you're busy falling in love with me
I'm busy not even noticing
the newness of it all
because I am hopelessly stuck in the past
yet constantly fearing for the future

You're busy kissing my neck
and I am busy picturing your lips
saying someone else's name
tasting the goodbye hidden in the
it's not you, it's me on your tongue

Your fingertips trace over the valley
of my side as if there is braille
etched into my skin
and you can't get enough of it
you look at me like I'm the last thing
you're ever going to see
you kiss me with urgency
and say my name as if it's the
sweetest thing to ever fill your mouth

You are busy falling in love with me
and I am busy failing miserably

busy
falling in love
with you.

We spent more time in your car
Than anywhere else we've ever been
Because we cared more about being together than where we were going
What was important was that the song that we both loved played on the radio
And our hands were intertwined over the center console
And red lights were an opportunity to be there longer
But no music ever sounds as sweet when it's been pulled apart over the space that now resides between us
And I have no desire left to sit in traffic in a car that is not yours with someone who is not you
But you don’t seem to have the same setback
You take the same risks you took with me and pass them on to someone else
You hold someone else's hand when you should have both of yours on the steering wheel
You look into someone else's eyes when you should be focused on the road
And I
I've stopped wearing my seat belt
Because I'd rather fly headfirst through a windshield
Than to live another day knowing that you don't love me anymore

Last night I gazed into the never ending darkness of the night
And fell in love with the glimmers of light
I became a god outside of time, so transfixed speechless and breathless
Being moved by its magnificent opulence
Completely restless i was made composed
And realized she had total control