thieves

it is about boys who are like an overcast sky; closed but for the brief moments of sun,  a sun that makes you feel as if you’ve stolen something from the world, sun that leaves you wanting nothing but more thievery.  it is about his shadows, passed from forehead to elbow as he moved farther from me.  it is why i didn’t think he would come and how i knew that, upon leaving, i would never see him again…it is to know wanting, and this knowledge, like a stone, leaves me alone to wonder at the heaviness.

so ive found it difficult to write anything about the slightest streets we passed through; about the hanging gardens that grew sunlight and bike tires and how the cobblestones were a treachery and a game and all i wanted to do was play with him.  but he would get so serious sometimes and his face would turn and i knew that i had lost again.  so i would skip stones in the river and stand on street corners and spin my map around and talk about nothing to myself (or a stranger) and laugh at the silliness of sadness. 

and actually (retrospectively, how easy!) what i wanted from him he could not give me; a kiss on the shoulder, just the smallest of touches.  But i got from him what i needed: someone, a lovely someone, to run with, run from the past and into a brand new present.