I want to write a poem about this. My story is full of the classic poem topics: love, heartbreak, misery. I’ve got the whole nine yards. I can’t give you a poem, though. My story is too long. I can’t do justice to a relationship without telling you the whole story. So here it is.

The way it appears to everyone, I don’t have a boyfriend. In fact, there’s even talk of me being a lesbian. Well, sorry to disappoint everyone, but that’s not the case. Not only did I have a boyfriend, I had one for a year and a half. And on top of that, he lives in Pittsburgh, far away. Don’t ask me why I chose him. I don’t know the answer. No, I’m lying - I do know why. I loved him. He was perfect for me.

We had so much in common it was almost unreal. The only major differences we could find were our choices in food. He loves sushi, but half the things I eat are covered in tomato sauce. Honestly though, neither of us could care less if the biggest fight we had was deciding between Japanese and Italian restaurants.

Sounds perfect, right? Having someone who loves you the same way you love him? It seems people are often doomed to care about someone more than they are cared for in return, but that wasn’t our situation.

I bet you’re going to say I’m too young to know what love is. I bet you’re going to say that I’m only a kid, that the best is yet to come, and that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, I’m sick of hearing that. I’m tired of everyone’s stupid reasons for thinking that teenagers don’t know what’s going on in their lives. If I can have adult responsibilities and adult needs and thoughts, I can sure have adult feelings.

I have loved someone and now he’s gone from my life. What I don’t understand is why I have to care this deeply for someone and not be able to be with him. What’s even worse is that he loves me too, just as I love him, and yet it doesn’t matter. He lives in Pittsburgh and I live in New York. Distance doomed us. We knew it would be a problem, but we tried to get around it. We figured loving each other would be enough.

It wasn’t enough. It just didn’t work. So, that means one of us moves, or we forget the whole thing. Well, I’m going to college. That’s a chance for me to move. I wish I could move to Pittsburgh, but I just can’t. There’s nothing for me there except Ron. I wish I could do it, just pack up and go to the University of Pittsburgh, but I can’t do that to myself. There’s not even a music program there. I’d be miserable, which would make Ron miserable. Our only other option is to forget each other, but I can’t do that either.

So here I am, looking out the window from my computer desk. Something about the drop in temperature always prepares people for the winter. Christmas break is coming. People have already started their holiday shopping, families are making plans to get together, and everyone is bustling around with the energy Christmas brings, but there’s only one present I want this year.