i smiled deep and kept pedalling / it was the kind of smile / that makes a boy forget how crooked his teeth are for / a sec

The part that strikes me the most is that there is no recovery. It doesn't really matter what either of us want now, even if that does mean getting back together. Never letting her parents know. Never opening a bakery. Never making any of the plans, no matter how far-fetched, a reality. Don't get this wrong, I never saw any part of us as being perfect. Well, wait. That's a lie because no matter all of the arguments, the frustration, the vandalism I thought we were perfect. I'm not trying to write something good and throw pictures behind it. This is in memory because, unlike last time, there's no coming back to it. Here's to late night phone calls and parties. Give it up to not having a place you can go together; sleeping in the flood-damaged basement of your friend's new house, and to birthdays. Here's to buying an apartment that's out of your budget because it felt like home the moment you walked in alone. Here's to picnics, knowing that your teeth don't matter to her because she loves you, scrap-booking, not caring what happens to the stability of your current life because of the actions, going to prom on your birthday - not because you wanted to, but because you would have gone to McDonald's that day just to dance with her. Here's to staying up all night and taking a nap in a sleeping bag on a picnic table in Newburgh. Now it's time to move on, to not give up. It's not the end of life. I existed before this. It hurts. But what doesn't sometimes? It's a small world, and everyone knows everyone.