1.) i’ve never had my stomach hitch so far up my throat like that. you were ice cold for days; you were blocking some other girl’s way; you were wearing the shirt you had on when we first kissed. i hope she smells me on you. i hope you dodged the daggers i looked at you with. i want them back.
2.) friends? i’ve traced every inch of your back with my fingers that never stopped feeling for more. i’ve weaved secrets on the underside of your jawline, grazed your neck with my eyelashes. friends? i’ve dug into your hipbones so deep i lost the meaning of ‘going too fast’. friends? my knees only know the ridges of your fingertips, my shoulder blades only recognize the curve of your smirk. i’ve labeled us lost. friends? this is not what friends do.
3.) it’s been two weeks since i found out you were moving continents. our best day; we were parked for an hour where we weren’t supposed to. you asked me about glory holes. i cackled in disbelief, talking about the movie that corrupted my tiny, 8-year-old brain. you breathed “keeper”, laughing at both our weird sides. i stretched into the driver’s seat ignoring the steering wheel digging into my neck, the parking brake stabbing at my sides. i’ve built a home from the middle of your chest down to the crevices of your rib cage. i’ve never laughed and heaved so hard in my life. comfortable is good.
4.) you talked about your family on a Tuesday. you came all the way from the courts and we sat on tiled steps as i measured the space between us with my thumbs. i can’t count the times your lips twitched upward, your mouth passed sighs, or your lungs gave out in frustration. i timed my words with yours and hung on all of your musings. your hands didn’t know what to hold and your eyelids didn’t falter for a second. “i’ve never talked about this out loud before.” this was yours. you will prove them wrong.
5.) your TV was on a bit too loud. you turned 18 on the 18th and i could hear your mother laughing about something crude your uncle said from all the way downstairs. you traced circles on my arm and worked your way from my forehead to my cheeks, kissing everything but my parted lips. “give in and you lose” you proposed. they were calling for us to greet your guests but the hurricane started not too long after and i searched for my will in your pillows and under your sheets but only came up with bruised lips, short breaths, purple necks. happy birthday, loser. but i gave in far before you even realized it.
6.) i had to catch my flight, i told you. my mom’s going to kill me, i told you. you were worried about the boys. i was worried about the time. you’ve been at this for weeks, scaring me with “like” and phrases you never finished; my brain halted every time. you whispered it, laced it in your laughter, hissed it through your teeth, testing the taste of it on your tongue over and over to get my wide-eyed look of horror every time. you won. every goddamn time. everything went quiet when you finally coaxed it out of your chest at the backseat of your dad’s car. “i love you”, cupping my face ‘til your eyes mastered the uneasiness of my irises. i did not flinch. you were sure, you told me. i did not flinch. i have not moved since then.
7.) our favorite, i remember. you skimmed through my poetry against my knowledge; it was about the boy i no longer look for in the front steps of every building. you were jealous of a ghost but i have stopped pumping my veins with the bitter taste of the answers i never got. read this now, these firsts that i am trying to build a body out of. because you are not sweaty palms and queasy bellies; you were never awkward glances and anxious thoughts; never the 3 am weed-induced slurs to the moon. i have stopped lining my writing with the absence of closure, stopped dousing all these letters with spite. you are 10 am drives around the city killing time we don’t even have; you are 2 am sleepy sighs, drowsy murmurs, the phone lines that dispatch our nocturnal conversations about the hours we didn’t spend filling each other’s space. read your being echo through mine. read this knowing you are the fog in my head; the marks on my collarbones; the relief when we stopped trying to be ‘just friends’. i have paused the thought of stable hands, stable inhales—exhales, stable sparks seeping into my bones way before i knew you could ever hit ‘play’. you are the steady pulse under my skin; you are constant; you are comfort.
