You Will Always Be My Biggest ‘What If’

It pains me to admit that you will always be the one that got away.

In twenty years, when I am happily settled in a suburban house with a white picket fence, my mind will peel apart years of history and at the center of it all, like a reminder that life can bloom from chaos, will be you.

You will be waving at me from across a crowded room, bent over a book and puzzling, holding my wrist tight, so tight, and whispering in my ear and brushing past every single one of my insecurities and leaving fire in their wake.

It pains me to admit that you will always be my biggest what if.

I wish I could picture the future us. You, staying, rooted like a tree in a storm, unable or unwilling to leave my melody in a silent world.

Just so you know, the stars never shine as bright as they did on the night I met you.

I cannot lie. It pains me to admit that someday, our time will be a pressed flower petal in the pages of memory.

And I wonder, as I say my vows for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health – to someone else – does it pain you too?