Photo by Tracy Fuentes
“I’ve got a lot to live without. / I’m never gonna meet / what could’ve been, / would’ve been, / what should’ve been you.”
—Taylor Swift, “Bigger Than the Whole Sky”
You were my first love
(I guess I’ll only be talking about you
in the past tense now),
I’ve never been through this before,
so tell me
what do I do?
What do I do
when the lead feeling in my chest
after I read your text
“We need to talk”
was simultaneously
proof of how much I love you
and of how little difference that made?
What do I do
when I can’t be mad at you,
because you did everything right—
even told me in person
that our timing was off
and held me while I cried,
as powerless as I was
when I was a child
playing in the same park
where you asked to meet
for the last time?
What do I do
when an uncontrollable, unforeseeable thing
like timing
stole the pens
right out of our hands
while we were in the middle
of writing our story?
What do I do
without you?
Kindergarten 