how i knew

i. the sense of adventure, of sneaking away from a loud, boring, obligatory place with dressed up people and bad music, for quiet & idle evening cards, which became conversational intimacy under bright florescents, in an alcove of an adjacent building. 

i was disappointed that the boy i was interested in, wasn't interested in me, but was being graceful & pragmatic about it, at thirteen, in a size zero chiffon floral. it was summer, and night was vivid, stars out above the balcony, stars out above the highway. the girls wanted to dance & kiss & flirt, but the familiar crowd in the cool dark of the dance hall made me want to be alone. we lost our euphoria-hungry friends.

you babbled like a little boy about the girls you loved, and i felt so old, even though you were older than me. sober & sad, you cried about the failing relationship between your parents, & about mortality. and i said the comforting things that people say. you got your secret sadness out, and the world was okay. and then i had to go.

i fell in love with the humanity, and you fell for the way i made you feel.


sixteen, and it was raining early in april. there was no happiness. the tortured romantic drama kept things interesting for a while, but then we were bored of playing our caricatures. the sun came out in the pour, and there was a rainbow. drenched in all that rain, we kissed, and there was nothing but cold & rain.


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ii. we were at the ocean. there was another couple with us, and they were playing. the sun was glittering in the water and in your sunflower-sea green eyes which only looked into me.

we ice-skated. i saw the way you looked at her, so later, at the bar which we loved, over casual beers, i asked you when you were going to go after the girl you've always loved. and you said never, because you had me & i was good. later, more drunk, you picked me up & spun me in the candlelight of your kitchen, & said you loved me, and asked but why i couldn't be more like her. i said i loved you. and the next day, i called to call it over, and you were a little angry, but said okay. i don't remember anything beyond that.


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iii. it was everything about you. the world was ordinary & bleak, and then it wasn't. it was your hair, the smile, our mutual love for good wine & lit & music. it was the end of summer & it was the way you existed. it was when you slept, when you laughed, the way you sometimes woke in the morning. it was the way we made our bodies close, a little fearful, but wholeheartedly.

i turned away and you turned away. we didn't touch. it was just gone. and when it was time to leave, i got the fuck out, running on the inside with my numbness. i don't even remember the kiss goodbye, because there was nothing in it, even if we wanted there to be.
i wished so hard. i didn't even know what i was wishing for. i wanted you deep, and i wanted to give you myself, and nobody could do anything. maybe nobody knew how.