charm(ed)

i’ll hold this in my heart,
and wait for you to fall apart.
i’ll place all my dreams
on the headboard of the bed
you’ll never own.

let’s burn the house, darling
set fire to the photographs
of the children you said you’d name.

let the cold idaho winds
take all the words you’d whispered
about love and dedication
away from here, and away from me.

and wasn’t i the fool
to think i was safe from heartache
just because i was the first
everything you’d ever
said you wanted.

first time you’d held someone’s hand.
the sensation kept overstimulating you-
“let’s just take it slow,” i whisper.

first kiss in a cold parking lot
walking to your brother’s car,
hand in hand, totally unexpected.

first time in a girl’s bedroom
and you sit on my floor, too
shy to look around, really.

first plane ticket to see someone
you were with - it was the same for me.
south carolina was never so pretty as it was then.

and you said you wanted to meet
my friends and my family -
we’d share a bed
and a routine, maybe.

two hours trumps twenty-four, dearest
and yet the distance was still too long for you.
and maybe i was a bit too much, too.

the ending was coming, i guess
i just didn't want to see it.
too much potential to be
dead in the water like that-

but these are the choices we made.
I chose to fall, and you
willed yourself awake.