3

It's been three months since I sat upright on a bus in Pennsylvania.

Three months since the rain washed Baltimore into a DC subway station.

It's been three months

three months

three

months

since the dress hung in the doorframe, 

steamed and begging me to "just graduate already."

And soon it will have been three months

since you asked for it to rain

outside my house.

You want time to spin at high speed

but every long workday is cut short by our ambitions

and I wonder if you look any different from last time

because I saw you every day for three months and the clouds were moving 100 miles per hour

your sentences were shorter than the hours you fit them in,

your hands evolved,

you cut your hair too many times,

and three months was enough to change everything.

But in three months I'll be turning 19 in a circle of introverts,

taking my college finals,

and watching the weather steal my trip home.

I'll be crying, too, because you didn't send a text

but I'd cry more

if you did.

Someone's outside my window talking on the phone to the boy she loves.

In 3 months, that won't be me.

So watch your back and your heart,

because every year passes by faster

and high school was hardly a daydream

and college hasn't been a day long yet

but you are going to be a figment of three months' tears.

In three months,

I'm going to see the world from the bed and the laptop that started my heartache.

I'm going to stop checking my phone.

And social media.

I'm going to cry a little and fight myself a little

and you're going to leave.

In three months you're going to leave

and I'm going to miss you.