I fell for you at the 24-Hour Diner on the corner of 58th and 9th Ave
It was the first of many nights we'd stay up all night
Joking we were characters in a John Green novel
Singing after hours in the courtyard and eating cereal at 4 am.
In winter, we'd walk barefoot down to the Hudson River
I was your Daisy Buchanan
Smiling, shivering in a slip dress,
It's silk folds quivering like the quiet waves on the sea
My arms around your neck
And you, always too shy to kiss me.
That was the night I told you I didn't believe in soul mates
Or love that didn't shatter
You told me you didn't know if you believed in my kind of love: the unforgivable kind
I said I didn't know if I believed in yours
But I'd try.
You took me to the Church of Saint Paul on Sunday
Taught me to pray
Taught me about faith
I told you I didn't know if I believed in God, so you told me to have faith in something else
I put it in starting over
You asked me to teach you about wild adventures
The kind in Perks of Being a Wallflower with David Bowie songs blasting in the background
I said I'd try.
We took the subway down to Brooklyn Park
I played you songs from Submarine, our own indie movie soundtrack
To a backdrop of Manhattan skyline and stars
I told you that you reminded me of the first boy I loved
But you said you were fixed, you replied
I said I'd try.
I asked you to run away with me and be my Huckleberry Finn
We escaped to Roosevelt Island
Sat by the lighthouse and watched the tugboats sail towards the Atlantic
London, Buenos Aires -- promise me we'll go someday I said
But the thunder and rain set in and we fled
Laughing, uninhibited like we didn't know how to fall.
When 5th Ave lit up with Christmas lights
You asked me if it was OK you hadn't kissed me yet
I told you there was no rush, we had forever
The first snow you promised me
And when it finally came, I told you to wait
Because I had the perfect song from my hometown:
"The world keeps spinning, a little too fast
If things don't slow down soon
We might not last
So just for a moment, let's be still."
On Saint Valentine's Day I made you mine
We finally watched The Fault in Our Stars
You gave me a dozen thornless roses and I gave you a photo album we could look back on someday
We'd stroll through Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Chinatown
Through ice cream parlors and bookstores, psychic's shops and Central Park
You were the Robert Mapplethorpe to my Patti Smith
Always snapping goofy film photos of me you'd never print out
But it was OK, we had forever.
But the rainstorms couldn't wait for forever
That night in Harlem the sky cried of a love unforgivable
I thought you were fixed you said
I'll try I replied
I don't understand why you're always disappointed you said
I'll try I replied
I don't know if we'll make it your green eyes whispered
We'll try I replied
But by the time the storm had cleared, you'd already given up in silence.
And when the silence broke I did too
Ran down to the Hudson like I wasn't afraid of falling because I couldn't hurt anymore
Shivering in my sundress
Replaying that lyric over and over in my head:
"We might not last."
I looked at the couples around me, their silhouettes like old friends
Looked out at the same backdrop of Manhattan lights and stars
And told myself:
This is the fault
This is the fault in our stars.
The fault that sometimes it's nobody's fault
That we can't control if we fall in or out
That there's no reason you can give me to make me give up on you
That no matter how much you believe in someone they might give up on you anyway
That sometimes the ones who glue us back together are the same ones who break us
That even the best characters don't always get a happy ending or a sequel
If it makes you feel better, I never told you that I loved you, you said
Never talk to me again I replied
And realized I'd never tell you that I had loved you too
That I had never stopped
"You're too good for me, you're too good for anyone"
I thought there was no rush.
That sometimes we'll never understand each other's versions of love, no matter how hard we try.
You believed in a love that's forgivable.
A love that's beautifully impermanent like a dozen roses
A love without thorns
A love with beginnings and endings like a novel
A graduation.
I believed in a love that's unforgivable.
A love that fades beautifully like a film photograph
A love that shatters like Laura's glass menagerie
A love like her glass unicorn and indie movies like Submarine
A love that doesn't exist, no matter how hard you try.
A love that wasn't real.
And maybe I should have known better.
I'll just blame it on the stars.
