these aren't love letters

I fear that we will hurt each other, the way first lovers do.

If it was love, wouldn't I have known?

Yes I know six years is a lot of time, To love a boy that was never mine, But it'll still be him 'til the end of the line.

I’m a flower your childish fingers have yet to pick apart, while your unkissed lips whisper 'Love me, love me not.'

So I hold my breath and count to ten. I trust that you'll have loved me then.

You are still my favorite gamut of color.

Her hair was decorated with the flower petals that spilled from his lips.

I looked at her the way she looked at the sky– With a sort of helpless naivety that sought to catch the most elusive of nuances within the complexities of the beloved unknown.

No, I could never forget you.  How could I, when you're the one person who could make a random street in the middle of nowhere feel like New York City, the peeling ceiling of a three-star hotel feel like the night sky, and a pair of bruised arms feel like home?

Maybe this is all that's keeping me going.  Maybe I'd rather hang onto this charade of casual pursuit and evasion, however painfully falsified, than face the reality that there is no place for a person like me in a heart like yours. Maybe I'd rather live this lie.

However long gone the feeling may now be, is it not true that in your heart of hearts, you have no doubt that they had meant it when they said they loved you?

Don’t search for stars in the eyes of a lover who can’t see the stars in your own.

Two boys a long way from home, slow dancing in a dressing room to a soporific song that somehow drifts above the muted chants of the eager audience outside.  No, they won't ever speak of this moment again, and in a few years they will claim to not remember anything from this night at all. The lingering hands, the swaying that calmed the rush of pre-show adrenaline, the breathy laughs following whispered lyrics that turned into full scale belting– all is forgotten when we are reminded that nothing survives the sunrise.

Was that you? Were you the woman behind his greatness, inspiration, and ingenuity? No. I was the woman beside him.

Be still, damned heart. His does not belong to you.

I refuse to be defined simply as your lover, to be remembered only as a single moment in your life. I had a life before you, and you are a fool to believe that I will not have one after.

Yes, I know that this must be love. But it's not enough.