in my head, you and i are both
nine, maybe ten years old
and the world seems bigger from down below
from long hair and crooked teeth
and we climb up the trees
i wish the air would get thin
i wish i couldn’t breathe
remember when i thought
you had a third degree burn?
but it was only queen anne’s lace
a fact i quickly learned
so we walked through the trees, and i tried
to be just like you, i tried to fit in
i always knew you’d slip away from me, i guess
it’s just a matter of when
and if you read this now, i imagine
you’d be rolling your eyes
but i still wonder about you, from time to time
ended up in your old neighbourhood
just up the street by circumstance
the white-picket fences and the neatly trimmed lawns
and no one knows you, but i thought i did
back when the differences between us
were still creeks to be hopped over
and not oceans to be crossed
call me nostalgic
or melodramatic
‘cause lately i’ve been feeling old
lately, i’ve been running my fingers
over the pockmarked scars still left behind
from back when you were the world to me
lately, i’ve been thinking
that love never heals
it is an open wound in the back of your closet
an unfinished page you can never quite forget
and i still remember,
when we lay on the grass and it all seemed perfect in our heads
we’d be best friends forever, we’d buy an apartment
in the city, and everything would go our way
i guess it’s easy to romanticize a time
when my feet were never sore
when my back never ached
i saw you at the skating rink, the other day
and hid my face on purpose
which goes to show, there’s not much that’s changed
i still read the books we read
and my parents still make jokes about the things we used to do
after all this time,
i still don’t know what to say to you