I remember you
& that rebel C
of blonde hair
by your ear.

You let me
tuck it back,
even after you knew
I liked you.

You were fourteen
& your world
was engraved
in italics.

When I cut myself
for reasons
I couldn't speak to,
you understood.

We were exiles -
but I always had
the impression
you found me

too safe to date.
Oh, how you were wrong -
an irony, for
you spared yourself

the wild hurt
of my terrible soul,
& the wrecked self
I gave so many others,

for when I said
"I love you,"
I always meant
something else entirely.

I started thinking back on you
as early as college,
glassy well of gin
weeping for me in my hand.

Years after that,
my brakeless bicycle
invited me into a bath of sun
& you were waiting there

as a thought.
I remember
being so divided by you.
My longings

were only ever half
about the blue
of your eye,
& that blonde C

I turned it back so I could
touch you by the ear -
a gesture you always allowed.
Mercy? Desire?

I never knew.
The other half was new,
a movement inside me,
learning how

to be in love,
a fourteen-year-old's
grand, hopeless romance.
I was reminded of this

that July 4th a decade ago
when I saw you here
in my city,
with your husband.

You still held
skeleton keys
that opened
my older locks.

Your intelligence
canted over me
& erased
almost fifteen years

& my chest was smoke
& my skin was a sky
& just as before, half was love
& half was not.