20 December

  

  Simon.

What in… what? You wore your necklace today. The one from the fair that time. When we snuck in with your cousin who was playing drums in that Jefferson Airplane tribute band. And we helped them set up and then took off, sixteen and wild with freedom. And we stood up on the ferris wheel to see if we could see the ocean and they kicked us off. And then we walked the tents, and looked at everything and it was all marvelous and it was all just a way of looking at each other. And we were holding hands then, I remember. And it was making me float, all of me filled with the helium of passion, stirred; and there were times I couldn’t tell which fingers were mine and which were yours. And we would do that young-person thing where you would look at me, and our eyes would lock and everything would get all breathless and dark, and so I would have to look away, and find something to distract my mutinous heart that wanted nothing but to take control and drive me top-speed, head-first off the deadly, sheer-faced cliff of you. And we saw those necklaces, the guy was making them, right there, do you remember? This blacksmith guy, pounding them out all orange and radiating, in whatever shape you wanted. And you said, “Lets” and I ok’d and we asked him to make something for us. And he did. And they were perfect. Two hammered circles, the front flat, punched around the edge with small circles. And the backs, two hearts, yours an indentation, mine slightly raised, so that, put together they fit precisely. And we glowed with them. And you took both of them, and paid the grinning smithy, and led me out the gate and we wandered over the foothills where the boulders have all collected and lie about in a riotous granite hullabaloo, and we climbed up and sat and watched the sky turn plum colored and soft. You took the necklaces and you put yours on and then turned to me and clasped mine around my neck, and I swept my hair aside and your fingers on my shoulder were a universe unplumbed. You caught my face and you looked at me and didn’t let me look away. And that was when you told me you loved me. At that moment all I wanted to do was to open you up and climb inside of you all small and warm and to never ever leave.

And who knows how long we wore them. Till I left, I suppose. And there you were today, reaching into the back of your car to get your things, and that old circle of hammered silver glinting in the light. And you watching me see it. And me having to pretend that I didn’t . I won’t wear mine tomorrow. I won’t have it be some private language between us. I won’t.

But I’m wearing it tonight, Sime. And I do. Still. Always.