I wait for a memory of you. 

The fat pasty heads of 

hot, sticky nightmares 

show their bald scalps. 

Memories that cause 

goose-fleshed nights crawl, 

ants under my skin, 

milk on my tongue. 

I was 12 when 

“best friend” was solitary confinement,

when suffocation became synonymous with 

a broken heart necklace. 

I was 13 when 

we rolled across 

endless waves of black asphalt

to the tennis courts

at the country club 

where the people behind checkerboard fences

wore mirror faces; 

regular, smiling, suburban. 

The boys in 

the court shouted to us in 

slippery voices, 

boys with 

tennis ball heads, 

who we flipped off and taunted, 

feeling united, 

feeling vulnerable, 

feeling wanted. 

This was one of the good times. 

We were 6 when your family 

split in two, 

I was 10 when 

you called me

stupid

an idiot 

like a child. 

I was 13 when

my friends said 

you looked like their nightmares. 

I was 14 when 

your head came undone. 

I was 15 when 

I saw you last. 

I knew you forever. 

And then you disappeared.