I.

I don’t remember all of you. You are a wild blur of youth in my
memory. Cicadas, a dusty sandbox, sunlight on your curls.

You were tousled hair and a little kid grin. I was prim and proper
white stockings. You pulled off my necklace and I told on you
to my mother. Games we used to play.

I found a picture of you. Blurry. You play the drums now, and you cut
off your curls.

II.

There were eighteen children in my fifth grade class and none of them
would speak to me. You were no exception. You had calloused hands
and a soft voice and your T-shirts hung limp around your bony limbs.

You must have looked gentle when I asked you out in the middle of
the lunch court and you said no.

III.

August was soaking my clothes when I found you in the shade. I made you laugh. You returned the favor. You were wearing a sweatshirt even though it was the hottest summer in years. Your words were blunt instruments but you never hurt anyone. We spent five damp dances bathed in neon together, even though you told me you didn’t dance. We swayed without touching. One time, in the middle of the lunch court, you took my hand and spun me around. We loved each other the way children do. I was twelve when I told you good-bye. It was getting late and the music slow and you held me tightly. We were both breathless when you let go.

IV.

We were thirteen when I first met you and your hair was white. I talked too much and you said too little. We were shy but you smiled at my jokes.
It was the nineteenth of August. We were shy. We did not speak for a year.

The next one we spoke from necessity and mutual friends, of classes and white lies and dreams and things. You pinned a nickname onto me, you threw your words like darts and sometimes they hit me and I pretended I didn’t care. I liked that you didn’t care for anyone, that you let people like you, that you always talked first. I thought you told me other people’s secrets because you liked my wide eyes, but now I think you did not want
to share your own.

We changed over the summer, you golden and me rose, and suddenly I was by your side. I knew I loved you on the twenty-third of January. We were on our way to a basketball game, the crowd heavy on the way to the hill, and you parted them like seas for me. I am a darter, a weaver, a scrambler. I have never been parted for. You watched over me, your green eyes brushing mine, and you walked me home. I knew I loved you then. I knew in the valley of my stomach and the cave of my chest.

We fell into each other and we fit like puzzle pieces. Our legs tangle when
we sit across from each other. You’ve pressed your palms against mine
too many times just to see how small mine are. You know the pitches
of my silence, I know the beauty of your voice.

You promised me late one midsummer night to write to me, and I you. I could hear your voice in the words you wrote an ocean away as you triumphantly called for us to take on the world. Us, you said. I loved you then.