Au Revoir

I guess this is it.
I set my alarm for six-thirty, even though God knows me well enough to snooze it until seven.
I cleaned my room like I was already leaving.  Maybe I am.
I looked up bridges in Paris, because I need to build a thousand bridges and get over them.
I listened to I Can't Make You Love Me for the millionth time and thought about how Ruby asked me to post a cover and I did.  I took it off.
I drank too much water before bed because I know if I wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, my dreams will be over sooner.
I wrote this. 
I wrote this for Mr. Nelson, because I never needed a reason to live until this year.
I wrote this for a boy that may think I have moved on.  Two years is a long time for loving someone who doesn't feel the same.
I wrote this for the dead, because it is Memorial Day.  And because if they were to give a title to this school year, it would be 'Remember'.
I wrote this for Alta June and for Heisenburg because I loved you both and wish I knew you better.  I know comments shouldn't mean more to me than the words I wrote for them, but they do. 
I wrote this for Joshua James and for Iceland. 
I wrote this for Simran, for India.  For the shoes I bought for graduation because my mom talked me into them.
I wrote this for the kids who are going to miss high school,
and for the ones who couldn't be more ready.
I wrote this for me. 
Because I'm not ready to face the real world.
I don't want to be married in my early twenties.
I don't want to be a stay at home mom,
or a steady member of a religion. 
I don't want to be something that can be found behind a desk or in the same house after fifteen years.
I don't want to watch 500 Days of Summer and cry because I can hardly relate to anyone more than Tom.
I don't want to hear Raoul say 'chocolates'.
I don't want to say goodbye.
Dear God, how I don't want to say goodbye.
To you.
To you.
To you.
I'm done with the hallways and with the traffic jams.
I'm done with inspirational quotes or 'reaching our peaks'.
I'm done with ceramic projects and teachers that could care less (except for you, Nelson).
I'm done fighting my own eyes from searching the halls for a familiar face.
Those things I can say goodbye to.
But when graduation is over, and you walk out that door, I'd be insane not to think about if I'll ever see you again. 
But cheers to us.
"We did it", if that is something people say.
And maybe you'll live an extraordinary life.
Maybe you will die in a car accident three years from today.
Maybe you'll have five beautiful children,
and a husband who couldn't be happier.
Maybe you'll get divorced.
But that doesn't matter to us now,
because those things haven't happened. 
So the best thing to say to you now, I suppose, is not even something I wrote.
Caution: Never ask me for advice.

"I'd die for you, but I couldn't, and wouldn't live for you." 


In the wise words of one musician: "You see, I thought that I was mighty, but the truth is I'm scared."

I'm scared.