I miss hearing you excitedly explain your dreams about Bill Murray saving your life
I miss hearing you explain why you never take Advil
I miss hearing your voice slur "what" and "hmm" together in a way only you could,

asking a question and simultaneously thinking about it too.

I miss telling you about why my mom takes the scissors out of my room.
I miss telling you "sorry i called last night" when i got drunk and you
weren't around,

(even though that never really stopped)

I miss my heart forgetting how to work every time we were together,
like morse code through my body pounding the scaredest possible "wow"

I miss you telling me "You're the worst" with a cocky smile.
I miss lying under the stars with you,
just looking while our friends made out beside us,
my neck uncomfortably on your arm because i was too shy to lie on your chest.

I miss sitting on your lap and worrying I would crush you,
and you reassuring me out of pride that I wouldn't,
that I couldn't.

I miss that day when we were drunk in you're best friends bed,
I was too scarred to kiss you so I just giggled,
and too drunk to remember how it eventually happened

I miss you making me feel small and beautiful and wanted.
I miss you making me feel big in a different way than my height ever could.

It was the time of summer where every kid had silently realized that it was ending,
No longer halfway through, no longer half full
Leaking and spilling out,
like the gas in my twenty two year old car
We couldn’t stop it,
And the moments of high school summertime
The moments that supposedly turn into stories we tell forever
Hadn’t seemed to have happened.

Both of us on the swing lazily swung
Dizzily from side to side.
Climbing forward, falling in reverse
Our combined bodyweight shifting back and forth
Tanned legs kicking up in an attempt at unison on every backwards glide.
Gravity hung us there,
Pulling the swing toward the ground no matter the rotation.

I sat on top.
I wore bleached shorts and bleached hair.
I worried that gravity or more so my value to it
would crush him.


At the same time, I felt unbelievably small.


The air pressed in on me from all angles,
it touched my bare legs
it easily waffled my shirt.

“Mel, if you were squishing me, I would let you know”,
he assured with a cocky tone of his very own that somehow made me feel special.
I couldn’t help but think he was only trying to be tough
Attempting to let sheer willpower overweigh my well earned quads,
My six foot frame.
The awkward body I never quite grew into
Never knew how to masterfully control
Never knew how to fill.
Though I secretly (wanted to) truly believe him

On this humid night I felt like the ball was in my court,
Like I could do anything and everything.
That nothing could go wrong
That the boy that I was sitting on was genuine
And that I could simply drive off to wherever.

(I had a full tank of gas and enough money to get me to Alabama).

I felt small in this,
in this infinity of possibility all around me.
Like a weight was pushing into me
Putting on pressure that couldn’t be ignored
That shrunk me just enough.
I felt powerless to fate
Powerless to this planet
To this grand, glorified hunk of earth which was so much greater than me
(and surely my insignificant weight anxieties).

I felt like the gas was leaking out faster than I could use it.
I felt like my infinity was disappearing as I swung within it.


Just like that, I let the ball drop and the gas leak out.
We just kept swinging.
Laughing,
Wasting,
Talking,

Dying.