I nearly don’t remember you at all but
Here was the place
My first time, yours too
Things you lose: your patience your temper your heart your mind your car keys
Lose your way lose ground lose an advantage lose control
Did we lose our innocence? It’s a silly thought
We were tough smart kids before, tough smart kids after
Although maybe a little bit softer
I was softer, after
And anyway, technically nothing was lost that night
It was just an intimate physical clinical experiment gone slightly awry
All over my thigh, and
I nearly don’t remember you at all
Or that night either, except for the pin-wheeling stars
Straight-backed trees a stern wall of witnesses behind
Warm wet wooden planks under my shoulder blades
Cool slapping water, and murky water smells
Conscious that I smelled like the deep-fat fryer I slaved over every day that summer
But you?
I nearly don’t remember you at all
You were skinny and blond and you talked about rugby and bored me to death
You said you hated my town. I hated my town too
You tasted like beer and tobacco, which was exciting
I was pretty sure you were sophisticated
I thought you were cute, but I can’t remember your face as well as I can remember
the spirals of the stars,
the straightness of the trees
When you’re young you’ve got nothing to lose,
when you’re not, you’ve got everything to lose
Somewhere in the world right now, like me, you’re not young
Are you fat? Prosperous, happy, divorced, bereaved?
Burdened by stresses we couldn’t imagine
when we were young together on a night
so fat with the future it felt like Too Much?
Ready to live it all, have it all,
innocent before and after, in the way tough smart kids are innocent,
we didn’t know the risk, that everything we live and have can be lost.
I don’t think about that night often, or really ever,
And I nearly don’t remember you at all
but that being said, I’m thinking about it now
and although your form is dim
your name carelessly lost like car keys,
I would just like to say that I am thinking of you with enough tenderness
for the skinny boy you were
the man you may have become
and the losses you may have suffered along the way
that I can almost say, at long last
although I nearly don’t remember you at all,
I kind of love you