I couldn’t see it until I packed up my things, taped up the last of the boxes;

suddenly the only thing tying me to my hometown was a memory of a boy long gone.

I said goodbye to the trees in my rearview mirror and then all at once I saw it all a little clearer.

Five years sitting patiently, thinking that gold string still tied us together now cut with a knife, ‘no reason to come back now’ etched into the metal.

As I turned my back on the town that raised me, I saw the mountains painted in violet tragedy as the sun set on childhood memory, and I couldn’t help but think, 

if, in a hundred years they’re still reading my words, will they know you? Will they wonder about the boy made of sunshine smiles and summertime sadness?

If they remember my name will they remember yours? The one that got away, the one I couldn’t keep, the one that didn’t stay.

Have I immortalized my own tragedy? Do these poems paint a heartbreak Pompeii?

Sonnet 1 through 154; A hundred years from now will they read my diary to learn your name?

These letters are addressed to the river; I cross my fingers though I know they’re not delivered—sometimes I wonder if all I am is a love letter returned to sender.

Clever boy, whip-smart with a midsummer night’s grin, of all the things to remember, your face, I think, is the cruelest. 

I still feel the ghost of your hand in mine—my head’s been turned over my shoulder since the moment I was born.

I can’t help but wonder, will they know in a hundred years or so if these letters reached you after all?

Will they have all the answers then, to every cross-fingered hope I locked away in a language purposefully forgotten?

When ‘the end’ hit that final page did you still think there was more to say? Did you ever think of following me into Hades?

Was I a photo album packed and gone? Did you keep me in your attic, a ghost to remind you of all the pain you lived through?

Or did you throw me out with the Wordsworth roses? Put me in the box I made and light the match on Brutus’ back?

Did those five years feel like longing or did they feel like freedom?

Does my name leave a taste under your tongue like an empire turned to ruin? Do the ashes of forever climb into your veins?

Your voice on the wind, was it anchor or thread? Were you calling me home or did you tell me to go?

No reason to come back now. No reason to come back now. No reason to come back now.

I said goodbye to you in my rearview mirror; the only thing tying me to my hometown, a memory of a boy long gone.

I could see it plain after I’d packed up my things, taped up the last of the boxes;

My sonnets will spell your name until my dying day but your name, my love, you have changed.