Kids shouldn't have to learn these things

"Who's tearing apart my gym?" 

Coach yelled as my clean hit the floor and scared him 

"Your little champion," you said, and smirked at me 

"I was only runner-up," I said, defensively 

That was a whole three years ago 

If I could go back I wouldn't have let go 

of your gaze, or your friendship, the way that we teased 

I didn't realize how much you meant to me 

"No one sees Annabelle anymore." 

You said that one day, because to even the score 

I chose to move up my graduation day 

Time with you was something I threw away 

That was a whole two years back 

If I could return I would have gone off track 

Stayed with you that extra year, 

I could have waited to move here

"Who's going to be there?" I asked Lexi 

"Oh, Ryan, and Luke, but not Cassidy." 

I knew without her there you might actually 

Swallow your pride and interact with me. 

And you did, and that was the last day we hung out 

before I left for college and you started out 

your senior year was going to roll smooth 

And then November 3rd I saw you. 

Not in person, I was two hours away 

I don't know why I felt the need to tune into that game 

I saw you play, mister million-touch-downs 

you played both ways and ran the other team to the ground 

Of course there was an injury, one of theirs broke his arm 

was rushed off in the ambulance, held up the game for too long 

when you all came back you didn't show mercy 

I really wish you had taken it easy 

Because I watched from my dorm room two hours away 

I saw you fall down and you weren't okay. 

After you had just ran the cleanest play of your life 

You played your last football game that night 

I prayed so hard when they rushed you off 

for your health and your safety, for one more talk 

I wouldn't care where that conversation went 

Because any time with you would be time well spent 

I fell asleep full of worry and regret 

And woke up to my phone ringing, one of our friends 

I didn't pick up, I was afraid of bad news 

I wasn't ready to hear we lost you 

I opened my computer to check my grades 

But the first thing I saw was my facebook page 

flooded with prayers and pictures of you 

I ran out of the dorm, it couldn't be true 

There in the stairwell of McMindes Hall 

I felt my heart closing, I slid down that wall 

If only I could throw up or stop breathing 

how on earth had your heart stopped beating 

The heart that carried us all those years 

I drowned in a river of my own tears 

I called up my dad again 

Wondering how I had  lost my once-best friend 

We were only seventeen 

Kids shouldn't have to learn these things 

That tomorrow might just not come 

That time was something we could run out of 

But if I could tell you something today 

I'd let you know I'm not letting minutes slip away 

I'm not hiding the ways that I feel 

and people might not like that but they deal 

And I tell everyone I love about you 

About all of the things you loved to do 

And how you never missed out on what you wanted to do 

And I tell them how much we all miss you 

And If I could hug you one last time 

I wouldn't tell you any of those lies 

About how much I wasn't going to miss that town  

That raised us both, because it made me so proud 

To see two thousand people in that high school gym 

There for support, there to find comfort in 

The closure we gained by seeing you one last time 

But you weren't scoring layups, you weren't even alive 

You asked me once, how many people would care if you died 

The answer was more than two thousand, you were an important guy 

So now when I go back to that one-horse town 

Your name comes up no matter where I hang out 

You left us a year ago 

But none of us have let you go