In English class,
my fingers found your curls
soft,
springy,
unfairly beautiful.
I told you it wasn’t right
for a boy to have better curls than me.
You laughed,
and suddenly the room
felt friendly.
We kept circling each other there
glances,
half-grins,
an almost-friendship
that thought it had time.
You wrote in my yearbook,
we should hang out sometime.
We smiled about it.
We didn’t.
Still, I like that girl
the one who reached out first,
who joked when she was nervous,
who didn’t yet know
how many ways touch
can mean maybe.
The classroom is gone.
So is the almost.
But the lightness stayed.
It’s part of how I love.
