on nights like this.

on nights like this

i wish i had a pickup truck,

one with an open bed.

like the one you used to have,

ridges of the hard metal underneath us horribly uncomfortable,

both willfully ignorant of the pain in our backs,

choosing to stay enveloped in each other's limbs instead.

on nightse likthis i feel forever 15, captured in moments of infinity that extend forever in both directions and are over in an instant

at the same time

nights like this i look up at the moon and try to chart the constellations

(you were always better at it than me), wondering what the stars looked like the night you were born, if the sky will ever look that way again, knowing the world was forever changed becasue you showed up in it.

nights like this make me feel like i'm in love. hopeful and eager, all that good stuff right at the very beginning, where you're so sure everything's going to work out perfectly, even though you know it won't.

it's all hope and beauty and bubbles and bliss.

nights like this the air smells different. it's like i can taste the cold. i can taste the frost on the plants and the fires in the houses nearby

on nights like this i feel on the inside of every beautiful moment that's ever existed and hopelessly on the outside, desperately waited to be invited.

on nights like this i think of you

and everyone

and no one

every thought painted in a nostalgic glow. on nights like this i wish i could call you,

talk everything out and relive our best moments once again,

recapturing the magic for just a minute because nights like this make me miss you,

make me miss our moments captured in infinity, feeling like everything was possible and the fear that came with endless potential, the agony of not knowing what would come next and what my life could turn out to be. now i am painfulyl aware that what my life will turn out to be is everything i choose to make it, that it's all on me.

on nights like this i remember that i'm in charge. and i remember that on that night in your pickup truck, i could have rolled over and kissed you first. i could have told you how much you meant to me

i could have been honest with both of us for once and then

maybe

on nights like this,

you'd be here.