I wonder if you remember, sitting on your porch smoking a cigarette while I sat on mine

It took me this long to sit back and think about who you used to be.
It's been hard to pick through all of the ****, rotting away the parts of my brain
that have forgotten who we used to be.

It wasn't always this vat of putrid waste, of tossed away hopes, of the essence of failure, of distrust and hatred.

Once before, a fire burning warm, hands held tight, drowning beers and speaking over the dead.

Now the castaways of a shadow's burden, haunting the spirits of the back of our minds.

I'd forgotten what you were like before this, but I can remember now.

Time is the thing that ruins us all, I think.

We hold too much faith on a timeline. "You can't text a boy until after 3 days," "don't have *** with someone you just met," "you barely know each other, don't get too close."

But time has never stopped to look around and cease what its doing so I could collect my ****, why should I wait for time to collect his?

We all live until we die, but with a false timeline narrative in place, keeping up with Mr. Jones and his wife, watching my friends have more babies around me, are we really living if we're in a constant battle that resets every 24 hours?

525,600 minutes and I want to spend them all crushing and rushing and running towards my goals, towards my dreams, towards my love.

"You don't love him, you barely know him, you haven't spent enough time together."

Time is just an illusion of your making, a figment of our shared consciousness. And I have always been a little off beat, a little out of sync.

Move in. Share the bed. The smell of coffee in the morning to wake. The sound of footsteps to the shower.

I'm not giving away any of my minutes with you.

The way my name wraps around his mouth
is the same way I've wrapped my mouth
around him, 100 times, probably more, I stopped keeping track.

What do I have to change?
                             everything
          nothing

And we have been down this road, with its curves and twists, at least 100 times, maybe less, I stopped keeping track.

And I fail to squash it every ******* day, but I will never not miss him. Never not hear his laugh in my dreams.

What do I need to work on?
                             everything
            nothing

Happily ever after seems far away.