To My First Love

Summer '98.

Savage Garden playing on a portable radio.

I remember you.

 

I remember your long, tanned legs,

disappearing

under skirts short enough

to make the teachers nervous.

I remember your skin, wet from hockey,

wet with wanting

in the woods behind the school.

 

I remember how they stared at you,

those boys,

snatching glimpses of flesh

as you so coolly ignored them,

and the sweet, smug feeling of knowing you were mine.

 

I was awkward, clumsy, out of sync.

You were the beautiful one.

I never quite knew just how I was allowed

to touch you.

 

It was worth the trouble it got us into.

 

Because I remember

holding hands

in train stations,

kissing

in rainstorms,

the swell of changing bodies

and the spirit of rebellion.

 

We were young enough still

to think in terms of forever.

And because I loved you then,

I will not look for you now.