Memories of you.

A shaft of silver moonlight

falls across the picture of

you and me

that hangs over my bed.

It was taken

just before we’d graduated high school.

You sit on that bench

where we passed countless hours together.

Flecks of morning sunlight

fall on the gloss

of your dark hair.

I smile as the memories wash over me.

Our heart-to-hearts outside Starbucks

Teaching you to read Braille with a cheesecake factory menu

Reading Shakespeare out loud

In Mrs. Stearns’s 6th period English class.

It is the last picture

Before everything changed.

In two months time

the miles will stretch like an ocean between us

when you head for Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University.

In the photo

I stand behind you

and my fingers tingle

as I remember feeling

the sinewy muscles in your back

and the touch of your freshly starched shirt against my skin

as I rest my chin on your shoulder.

It was the morning before

you told me you could not love me

not the way

I wanted to be loved.