And if I could compel you into existence, you would move like a cloud across the sky (light from below but heavy from above) The shadow of the plane bears a scar on your skin, and you move so slow against the roar of the engines, as if you know I am waiting for you to disappear, and reticent, you pull back the days of my childhood. How swiftly you once scuttled across the sky, your white form sliding between my fingertips like time: (11, 12, 13 Growing up, growing up, almost grown up but never quite) I am now old enough to speak of Home as a lover, whose presence is tender yet leaden weight. I am young enough to have never known anyone else, a pleasure that almost feels like pain- (where did you grow up? did you have a happy childhood? how to ever answer a question like that?) Then I wonder how I can put so many thoughts into one vessel, how I can crush so many moments (the ones you gave from your cold soft heart, which condense against my skin until they rain, and freeze, and thunder) into one feeling. Yet first loves are always selfish, and when I watch you leave I think of only something like relief.
This piece first appeared in Kingdoms in the Wild.