the boys i've loved and the end of the world

he used to love me, i think

he wasn't someone i saw coming, but they never are, are they? he was the most beautiful mistake i ever made, if you consider it a mistake. but i never thought it was. merely the wrong place and wrong time. people would roll their eyes and shake their heads, but we never asked for their approval. to us, it was all right. every last moment. he was a compilation of all the beautiful things in the world that had strings attached. he was a summer thunderstorm with the fallen tree that blocks your driveway. he was the stars in the sky that died centuries ago. he was the high and the low, the beautiful fire and it's scorching burn. i wrote poetry about him for months after he was gone and with every word a wound reopened but the pain reminds me of him so i keep writing. i can't stop. won't stop. i used to not be able to write, but now i can't stop and it hurts so much. he hurts so much, but he is so beautiful. i will never be able to say he is not beautiful, and that is the most sad thing of all. he stopped calling me beautiful a long time ago, the words left his mind, slipped off his tongue in another conversation with someone who means more than me now. the most painful thing about love is that somebody has to stop eventually and it's never going to be you. it will always be them. they will be empty before you're even at halfway and you'll be left with gallons of love and nowhere to put them. the obvious thing to do would be to love yourself, but your eyesight is clouded with agony, so you can't see what's two feet in front of you anymore. so instead it drips out, useless, wasted on meaningless kisses in the middle of the night behind your neighbor's garage, pointless promises and grasping hands under sheets that aren't clean, metaphorically or literally. i still write about him, even now. it's been months since he told me he didn't love me anymore and i still write about him as if he does. i used to not be able to write but now i can't stop and he is so beautiful, and even now that's all i see and that is the most sad thing of all.

-c.h.