Hello.
By now you are far away, in a college in some dreamy state where new girls may lull you to sleep. They will get to touch your short curls. They will get to trace their dainty fingers up those arms I grew to love so dearly. They will get to see you in every light I never got the chance to. But take this with you. So when they pick up their strapped heels and begin their long walk home you'll remember me. You'll remember laying in two different beds, streets apart, feeling like we were right next to each other.
I don't remember a time where I didn't think of you. When I saw you on those steps the summer before fifth grade I can recall having one thought. "He's going to like me one day." For back then my long pig tails were atrocious to me and I couldn't ever imagine someone taking one look at my freckles and wanting to plant kisses on them. So I imagined that in the future, when I was older, and more capable, and beautiful you would like me. And you did.
But I was the idiot you see? Because you liked me all along. You liked my small, dorky glasses, and you liked my long hair. You planted quick kisses on my cheeks before I had the time to stop you. You grabbed me by the waist in the cafeteria even when I squealed in embarrassment. You jokingly licked under my ear to make me blush. I never knew what real butterflies were like until you wrapped your arm around my shoulder. I never knew what it was like to be taken over by a fire so delicious you never wanted to stop burning.
Your lips never touched mine but I thought about it. I thought about those arms encasing me in every way. How your forehead would tilt against mine. How I'd finally hear your heartbeat instead of mine own pumping in my ears. I guess I'll never know.
Is it a little crazy for me to say I don't think this is the end? Whether you are there and I am here I don't think the string will ever snap. Whether you are with her or I am with him I don't think I'll ever forget. You were the first one to make the butterflies leave their hiding places in the enchanted woods of my heart and travel down to my stomach to make a home. So this is for you.
So there you are. Laying in bed as another crawls out of it and back into the night. Staring up at a badly painted ceiling as your back itches from the scratchy wool blanket your mother gave you. And I am thinking of you. As I hope you are thinking of me. The butterflies leave me now as they go to make a home in the next girl your arms touch. And I say goodbye.
Goodbye you.
