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.