Changed

I was at a race this morning watching Royce and his brother do a 5 miler. It was bitter, brutal cold, but we stayed beside a wall that kept the wind at bay. After that we were driving home and went past this old neighborhood where I used to hang out with an old boyfriend. He was my first one, first serious one. It all looks the same there, houses are just the same, the streets, everything. Can I close my eyes and see me there? I think I could. Here is what I see:

Boy on a moped, girl on the back, going way too fast, going off to where... we never knew. We found this place once behind the hospital and there were foot trails. We left the moped and walked back in and underneath a bush was a deerbed where we laid down and looked through branches at a deep blue sky and it was hot, muggy... kissing, and kissing was never like that before and never like that since.... Another thing I remember is we never worried about how deep to go or how far, we were limitless, and unafraid, nothing to risk.. we talked about everything without holding back, we felt each thing and each thing was personal and we weren't embarrassed about it. It wasn't ideal, no; but it was ... free. For awhile.

I ran into him not long ago. Actually he came to find me, but ... He was not the same. Face was not.. for kissing anymore. It was devoid of the wildness that seems never to leave me, but seems often to leave others. Talk of the flow of money in his life, talk of products he buys... I wanted to ask him about ...to ask him if he remembered being under the bridge on that cold day by the reservoir and how I was staring off like people do sometimes when they zone out and how when I came back to he was looking at my face like he had just watched something being born. I didn't know what being beautiful was 'til then.

I couldn't stay with him long at the restaurant where we met all those years later, it was too awkward for me. Small talk ain't my thing. But I did go home and write him a poem.