You drove home after you hugged me. You listened to the playlist of songs that kept me up weeping last week. And I know you put them on shuffle. You told me never to do that and I haven’t. Until now. Because I have to know what you heard as you drove away from me tonight.

“Hey, are you awake?
Yeah I’m right here
Well can I ask you about today?
How close am I
To loosing you?”

It takes twelve minutes and eighteen seconds to listen to all the songs you listened to, but it takes fourteen minutes to get to your house. What did you do for that one minute and forty eight seconds? Did you drive in silent determination? Or did a tear slip out of you left eye like it does with mine when I listen to The National?

“And when you are out there on the road
For several weeks of shows
And when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home”

You gave these songs to me. You wrapped them up like a gift and left them in a message for me to find. They were an experience like you promised they would be. But it wasn’t the experience that I was expecting. It made me want you like the sun on a rainy day. It made me want you there to hold me when the the heavy weight of tears drops were too heavy for to bare.

“I’d give my body to be back again
In the rest of the room
To be alone with you”

Some things will never be what you want them to be. No matter how hard you try to bend or break them to fit your idea of perfection. Like listening to the playlist you made me and wishing it was about you instead of us. Like not wanting to move far away from you no matter how much you make me cry. But maybe you get that too. So when we parted ways after you hugged me and I got home and waited around for you to text you didn’t.

“And it was time to know
That it was time to go
It was time to know
That it was time to go”