Freewriting you.

This will be rough, as I've had far
too many shots of vodka, yet
it reminds me of you and I
as teenagers, hiding away
bottles in cabinets and
lingering a bit too long in
each other's contrasting eyes.

Sometimes I think I peaked,
that I was at my best and most
carefree when I knew you,
a curious teen singing quietly
to "Hopes and Fears" while it
skipped and stuttered in my old
portable CD player on the long
drive to school each morning.
I didn't care some songs cut out,
just grateful you grabbed it
stubbornly before your mom
could chuck it in the trash.

Perhaps, in another universe,
a far better one, I'd still be alive
in every song we harmonize,
knowing this could very well
be the last time life would let
us be this wild and reckless.

I miss the loudness of your
words trumpeting in the air,
how you created new fragrances
on my neck and the taste of the
sun and meadow (and you)
blooming on my face.

We knew nothing but euphoria.

But the days are bitter now,
and the scars we both wore
sear my insides and outsides,
and some days, it's as if I never
healed myself from you.

We're connected, in the nostalgia
and tragedies we couldn't write
ourselves out of.