Table of Discontents

I used to indulge my nights in the pitter-patter of
Back-and-forth
Text-to-text
Inconsequential phone conversations where every word was planned diligently and every emoticon was placed artfully and every message bled with the ambiguity of that absence of facetoface, voicetovoice clarity
That ensured that every intonation and criss-crossed arm was doing its job by informing the audience of meaning and perspective but really,
What of that matters when you're in love?

I used to have a guilty pleasure of midday movie watching in that pile of various fabrics where face begged face to invade its space;
We hung on every moment like each minute cost us a million dollars because,
Where are teenagers like us going to find that kind of money?
We're just stupid adolescents dripping on each second, holding on to the present like it's our only present,
Lost in a world of wants, and limitlessness, and flustered, horribly constructed ideas that involve adrenaline and adventure and money,
Yes, with money we could do anything.

I used to place you on this pedestal in my mind where you could do no wrong, where everything about you was shiny and flawless and sparkling.
I used to pretend that this was just the beginning instead of the last page in a book that never got past the table of contents,
A summer full of possibilities with lanky days of Arizona tea and parks we were too old for and other things we did to pretend that we hadn't passed that benchmark of adulthood and that we weren't weighed down with the responsibility of opportunity.

I used to know myself inside and out.
"Loyal" was one of the adjectives I would put down when asked about my personality traits for some reason.
Now I'm not so sure.
Did I try too hard to do the right thing that it turned out wrong?
Did I subconsciously mess it up or did I understand that I was messing up?
Am I still who I thought I was?
I understand now that what we were wasn’t perfect at all.
There was the uncomfortable lull in the conversation,
Where I would look out the passenger window at the
Trees, birds, grass, people
Wondering if this was how “it” was supposed to be
You know,
True love?

And now all the flawless moments where you would
Hold me like a buoy about to float off to sea are
Lost within the petty arguments that chain us to grudges and hopeless conversations,
Conversations in which I still have the slightest hope that someday something will be different
Even though experience helps me know better.

Because although I’d like to think that “what we had” was different than
What was had by others and ourselves before,
The truth is,
Our story never had a proper ending
Because we never made it past the beginning.