Summer '98.
Savage Garden playing on a portable radio.
I remember you.

I remember your long, tanned legs
disappearing
under skirts short enough
to make the teachers nervous.
I remember your skin, wet from hockey,
wet with wanting
in the woods behind the school.

I remember how they stared at you,
those boys,
snatching glimpses of flesh
as you so coolly ignored them,
and that sweet, smug feeling of knowing you were mine.

I was awkward, clumsy, out of sync.
You were the beautiful one.
I never quite knew just how I was allowed
to touch you.

It was worth the trouble it got us into.

Because I remember
holding hands
in train stations,
kissing
in rain storms,
the swell of changing bodies
and the spirit of rebellion.

We were young enough still
to think in terms of forever.
And because I loved you then,
I will not look for you now.

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