You are forever seventeen years old,
in love with the boy with a crooked jaw
and a heart made of gold.
You are sixteen when you meet him
and he is enamored with you
the minute you walk in the door.
His soft gaze startles you
but the moment he flashes you a smile
so blinding, it hurts,
you know you’ve found your star
in this vast, lonesome universe.
You are seventeen,
and your favorite place
to fall asleep is in his arms,
and his is with you in his embrace as well.
You count the days until you can
close your eyes every night
and wake up every morning tangled
in a mess of limbs.
You plan and you dream,
never realizing the little taste
of domesticity you get
in these stolen moments
is the only time the same
universe that put you together
will allow you two to have them.
It is a love story written in the stars
but it is not one fated to last.
For while he is certain
the sun will rise again tomorrow,
you brace yourself for the day
the night will consume the light forever.
You are jaded and jagged,
so tired and fearful but fighting.
He is smiles and optimism,
the sun to your moon,
and maybe you feel guilty
for shining only because of the light he emits.
You are ice cold and rock hard,
a creation of a ruthless environment
that he has not seemed to let deter him.
Maybe you think he deserves better,
to be able to shine at his full capacity
without being responsible for your light too,
but what you do not seem to realize
is that he has not broken or dimmed
because you give him a reason to wake up
every morning and burn as bright as he does.
You are stuck in an internal conflict
that ends with you letting him go.
He cannot understand but he loves you,
so while he does not want to say goodbye,
he lets you live your nights without him,
and he goes on with his days thinking of you.
Yet, despite this, you and he both know
that even if you are in two separate worlds,
two parts of a whole stumbling
to survive without its missing piece,
you will find your way back to one another
because he loves you,
and you love him.
But life is cruel and unforgiving,
the moon was never destined
to be with the sun,
and he is forced to watch his life and yours
drain from your eyes
as you struggle to breathe
for the very last time.
It is fitting that it is the night
that takes you away,
and for a while, it takes him too.
He is lost, run ragged, and so heartbroken,
that for a while, it seems as though
your worries of the night consuming
the light have come true.
The world becomes a colder place
and even though he tries to prevail,
gets up every time the universe
knocks him down again,
there are just so many times
he can put himself back together
before it becomes too much;
before something bigger and stronger
gets tossed at him and finally defeats him.
And while he couldn’t save you,
you save him.
Again and again
because he loves you,
and you loved him.
Even though you have breathed
your last breath,
have spoken
your last words,
have fallen asleep in his arms
for the very last time,
your love still courses through his veins,
pumping his thumping heart
like a strong, unrelenting drum;
determined to have it beat on
for the both of you.
Even now, you continue to ensure
he will live on and shine
because the world cannot survive
without its sun.
He will live on and feel
the gaping hole the moon
has left behind, but he will also
know the moon would not want him
to dull because of her absence.
He will learn to go on as one part of a whole because he has to,
and he will spend the rest of his days
mourning the moon who cannot be there
to help him shine but he radiates
because of your love anyway.
He will continue to love you even when he is
eighteen, fifty-four, and eighty,
and you will forever be seventeen,
in love with the boy with a crooked jaw
and a splintered heart still made of gold.
