the things you can find in your back pockets

  There is no such word as "Loved". Love has no past tense. If you ever stop loving someone, then you never truly loved them in the first place.  -Unknown

You know when you stick something in your pocket and forget about it;  maybe you'll find it next winter when you wear that coat again, or maybe it gets donated along with the old pair of jeans you're never fitting into, or maybe it falls out and you forget to check for it so it is lost for ever? Well, a boy did that to my heart once. He took it, even though I had no plans to give it to him, and shoved it in his back pocket.

So there I was, with my heart in this boy's pocket and he didn't know it was there because he didn't look for it, and he was putting his heart in someone else's pocket and it made me want to scream because i didn't know her so I couldn't hate her and that is really what all girls want to to when a boy is running around with their heart chasing after someone else's. I wished that it was me who he went all out making Valentine's day special for and had a great time with. I wished it was me that he was kissing, even if he might have tasted funny. And I wished it was me whose heart he took out of his pocket and took care of.

But he wasn't looking for the heart in his back pocket, instead he was looking for the one that he may or may not have had while mine sat there waiting. But my heart wasn't patient. It was telling me that I need to just go up to him and kiss him next time I saw him, even thought that would create a scene and he would feel very uncomfortable about it because he didn't know my heart was in his pocket even though we both agreed that telling someone you liked them was always the better plan. It was also telling me to text him and tell him that I might love him, or I might just like him, I'm not sure, but I do know that I think about him and want to spend time with him in a very un-platonic way. It was telling me a lot of other things to, and I was very impressed that he couldn't hear it screaming at me. I mean it was in his pocket.

But I didn't listen to it, instead I wrote about it. Because we all know that writing is the next best thing when compared to confessing your maybe-love-definitely-an-infatuation-possibly-an-obsessive-want-slash-need-to-be-with-this-boy-who-may-have-been-perfect.

I sang about it too. And then I danced to that song, savoring the flavor of the tragedy. Next, I cried about it, and laughed about my tears. Then, when I fell to the floor out of exhaustion, I landed on my butt and low and behold, I found a heart in my back pocket.

That is the funny thing about love. You think you found it, that the boy you are thinking about right now is the most perfect person in the world and you want to have his babies, then one day you turn around and think . . . oh. I was wrong all along. And you never forget, and you never lose those feelings, but you get new, stronger, better, more pure and right and beautiful ones and you grow and expand and change and find yourself through it all.

That is what it really is, when you love some one it means they helped you find you. That is why you always love them, because you can't get rid of yourself, even when you are stuck in a pocket some where with that boy you don't talk to any more and it hurts and you wish you could. You are who you are because of that trip in his back pocket and there is no going back from that.