midnight in December

And when I say I love you I mean I’m scared you’ll leave me

I’m so used to the warmth of your arm around me without you I’ll be forever cold,

In the terrifying realization i never should have grown used to your warmth.

And today I spent all day writing because I remembered all of those things I promised I’d remember forever and I forgot

Like the login information for the poetry account I made that I don’t know if anyone ever saw

Or the night we had our first kiss in the hours right before sunrise

That glowing kind of faith that sunrise would still happen it was so dark out but we still closed our eyes and trusted it would be light when we opened them

I wrote it all down

Because what if you aren’t there to remind me.

And when I say I love you I mean I know you’ll leave me

You’ll find my voice too shrill or get tired of the times I fall asleep right before your lips touch mine, the promise of one day not real enough, and my silly jokes and foolish dreams too tiring to hold on to

So I’ll slip through like sand in your hands

And I’ll hold on to you because I wrote us all down

Turned us into midnight poetry

Timeless like my middle school dreams of a tall boy with green eyes to hold my hand

And in the wake of rejection I’ll want to throw my words into flames,

Let the fire consume us like feelings always do

I’ll be laughing through my tears as you disappear

But your phantom arm on mine quenches the inferno

I’ll save you the memory I owe us that much.

And when I say I love you, I mean, I’m asking you to stay

At least for today

And if I’m lucky

Tomorrow.

And tonight maybe I’ll call you

Just to say I wrote a poem about you,

But it isn’t your time to read it.