i can remember the crisp winter air on my exposed skin in the courtyard

i can remember the way you said my name, colder than the air around us

i can remember your eyes on me, your hands, pinning me there

i can remember their eyes on me, their mouths gone where they should be

i can remember the fear in my heart, pumping out an SOS with every beat

i can remember grabbing your hands to get them off my body

i can remember wishing one of them would put their hands on yours

i can remember running for my life towards the single-stall bathroom

i can remember flashes of my thirteen years in slow motion

i can remember relief as my days of racing boys proved its worth

i can remember slamming that door, but not locking it, but i guess i did

i can remember you on the other side pounding your fists into the door

i can remember the way you called my name this time; teasing, taunting

i can remember your footsteps growing distant as i sank to the floor

i don’t remember how or when i got the strength to pick myself back up

i don’t remember much else of that day, that week, that month, that year

i don’t remember a time i wasn’t afraid of being not quite fast enough