Reminiscing on a crush
Poetry: I really loved this girl in middle school. Big ole pile of gay yearning
Its 2012 & I remember sitting across from each other at lunch, silently the stench of cardboard pizza swapped with moldy milk & song lyrics like candy. In school, we play fake girlfriends and lock arms through hallways. Arms covered in our own red scabby slashes. Adorned with grief for all we couldn’t tell you. Falling out of myself and into Her. Cut bangs & music I can’t listen to anymore without seeing a specific face. Lock arms like Try to pull us apart. There is a comfort in sitting silently, swapping books back and forth like love letters. Everyone always liked Her. AND THE GIRLS TOLD ME ALL THE REASONS THEY HATED ME AT MY BIRTHDAY PARTY. And I loved her more than they liked her i think. It is blurry. But remembering a smile covered by a squeezed hand. To adapt a genuine sparkle into my own eyes. I remember sitting in bathrooms. Etch a sketch heart and a pile of gay yearning. I’ll tell her first. I’ll tell her always. I’ll tell her silently. With eyes. I am without safety now. We are older and I no longer have the scars i once did. I wonder how far I faded from her. Here I am crying over spilt cafeteria milk again. To be young to be queer is to wear your heart on tattered sleeves, under many layers. Language becomes without tongues. To communicate becomes an omen. A glance being almost too close to intimate. I’ll tell her first. I’ll tell her with my mouth closed. I’ll say “Maybe it is not too late to hold ourselves younger. To be as proud as we deserved to be. To love loudly is not the sin we thought it was. You are beautiful. You are awakening.” Hold me from the past. I’m calling you from the future. Fade from me. But not really. I am speaking loudly for the times we couldn’t. Thank you.