A Year's Difference

A year ago, around this time.

I finally learned how it felt to be loved.

Not how to dart and chase after it under bridges

and in the back’s of friend’s cars, eyes wide and blood racing.

Not how to dream it out of nothing and wake up to only the cool, sick quiet of empty sheets,

but how to wind up completely and totally surrounded by it

without even knowing how I got there.

I remember how we ran up the southern beaches at the end of that day,

feet slick with sand and speed,

poetry spewing from our lips,

our histories being made.

I could feel the smiles pulling at their cheeks,

the wind tossing salt through their hair

and their heartbeats alongside mine,

beating loudly at the prison of my ribcage.

We put out feet in the water that was still spring-cool,

listened closely how those waves wrapped around us

and fought with the music and laughter they played

for space in the atmosphere.

My bones crushed in togetherness

It only hurt because I finally belonged

And knew then that I couldn’t stay.

When I left and went west,

watching myself become old

through the passenger side window of my mother’s old F-150,

I followed Life so far away that their thundering beach steps

and screams of teenage joy

became nothing but the moans of the East wind

who now stalks me through the gorge.

My limbs have grown heavy,

filled with water that flows fresh out here,

in demanding, tumultuous currents,

but not in waves,

who always knew to return to rest their tired bodies

along the beaches by night.