Afterthoughts

I'm twenty years old and

I'm driving with the windows down in February

and something stirs deep in my chest.

It's a paradox where I feel some kind of invincible,

but also really human.

I feel especially young today.

Maybe it's the way my hair is all

long and messy and tangled like a little kid's.

Maybe it's the way I feel like I have all the time

in the world.

I'm not sure how we got here,

but we're sitting on a boulder by the lake and

we're talking about how much can change in a year.

I look at the sky—and for the first time in months,

I feel like I can finally breathe.

Your boyish smile and honest presence

makes time stand still.

The world is quieter with you.

We sit on your bedroom floor in the dark and

you tell me things you've never said out loud before.

Your tender revelations make me believe that

love is meant for people like you and me.

I feel childlike affection when I look at you.

You won't say it, but I know you feel it too.

Promise me you won't forget this moment.

Promise me that when you have a new job and

a new family and a new life, you'll remember how you felt with me.

Promise me that next February, you'll pull this memory

out of your back pocket and turn it over in your hand

and remember how good the universe was to us.

Those are my afterthoughts:

the things I wish I would've told you that night—

but somehow I still can't find the words.

I lean into the ecstasy and heartbreak

and I hope it heals what is broken inside me.

It's selfish of me to ask,

but I don't want to be any further apart from you.

Please just stay.