Monday, September 5, 2016

Day 2: Unsmall

Unsmall

We were friends the way 10-year-olds who don't fit
meld together into a unit of awkward by necessity. 
We didn't understand each other and didn't have to because 
we were 10 and didn't know the burdens we carried or 
how to name ourselves and our lives  - but it didn't matter
because we danced for the same reason
and knew it. 

I was the shy, bullied girl with too-big glasses; he, the only boy in dance class,
and we somehow fit into each other's space with an ease we knew did not just happen.
We got to know each other's quiet pauses. The ways his eyes would soften when he knew
things weren't good at home or
the costume did not fit or
they closed my fingers in the dressing room door - again, and
I knew the way he was practicing jumps when
things weren't good at home
or school
or anywhere
and we would lose ourselves in
who could jump higher or
who could pirouette longer and this
is why we danced.

Hey Buddy, he would say, and we would
sit on the steps where we
weren't supposed to be but
no one would stop us because together we were
invisible and invincible and
it was never love but I loved him in a way that made us
not small at a time when we were both
unseen: we could
dance each other large
if only for a moment and
what is love anyway but making each other
unsmall?

Life happens, in spite of unsmall love and
I haven't seen him for more years than I knew him, but
after 13 years, when I saw his mother's obituary, 
I knew I had to go.

He stands on the porch, smoking a cigarette
wearing a too-big suit and the weight of the world on his body.
Hey Buddy, I say.
He shakes his head like he used to and his eyes go soft.
It's been so many years, he says.
I hug him tight, his shoulders broader than at 17;
I feel so small against his frame.
I can't believe you came, he says, and his voice
cracks under the weight.

I hold him with my eyes and know this love
can still make us unsmall and
for a moment
we are there, 
dancing each other large.

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