Lost in the Past

Slowly I reach my hand out and glide my fingers over the engraved wood. It’s been so years since I came back here and I’m surprised it’s still here. And yet I still remember it like it was yesterday. Vines curl up the sides of the old stick fort and dense weeds surrounded it from years of not being tended to. It still smells the same, like pollen and lust. 
We used to spend so much time here laying together with you reading Romeo and Juliet to me while fireflies blinked in the dark. Most nights I’d sneak out to here, making sure to skip the last step so I didn’t wake up my mom. The moon would light my way and you’d always be waiting for me with a smile and a book. We’d read under the stars until my eyelids started to droop and your voice got tired. 
So many memories were made here. I close my eyes, feeling the hard wood under my finger. The night I found out my parents were getting a divorce I ran out of my house in tears and you met me here. You held me and told me everything was going to be okay. I breathed in your smell and smiled. That was the first time you said you loved me. The night we wrote on the wood our promises of forever and ever. 
We spent so many nights together, holding each other. But we were teenagers and we were naive, thinking that the world was ours for the taking. But we grew up and eventually, we grew apart, though I didn’t see it until it was right in front of me. It was a cool night and the air was heavy. I made my way to the fort looking forward to your warm touch and bright smile. But when I found you there you didn’t smile at me. You ended things that night and I’ll never know why. That was the last time I had been at this fort, until today. 
You fell out of love but I never did. And I don’t think I ever will. I slowly glide my finger over the engraved wood one last time. Forever and ever L.G and D.F. 
I leave the past behind me but I’ll carry it forever in my heart.