love you forever.

it just hit me

(like stepping out of the door

where the windows are warm and moist

into the teeth of something that shrieks

and strips your heat to the bones)

that one day i'll be the face

in those old pictures

that little hands

still sticky with the chocolate

you always carry in your pockets

"for a rainy day"

(you didn't have any 

two weeks ago and an hour

all that were in those depths

 were your hands

as if shoving them in the dark

wouldn't let me know that they were fists

and shaking)

will one day point at them

and with small lisping tongues

ask "Daddy

(oh that hurts.

to realize that that dream too

was strong even though silent)

who is that?"

and you'll shrug and say

(like you were talking about

a sweater you outgrew

or a bad habit

silly now because it's been conquered)

"A girl i used to date"

and they will find it strange

that his eyes that follow her 

around the room so intently

(the way water follows

the stream bed 

as if there's no where else

it could go 

i know because that used to be me)

once watched another

and secretly not believe it

because the way things are 

is the way things always were

and always will be

this is what youth teaches you

and then life teaches you

that love leaves

and you grow up

into a photo on the back

of some stranger's yearbook

signed with xoxo4ever