I.
A little over a decade and a half ago she and I met, sometime, for the very first time. I don't specifically remember this moment yet think fondly of it from time to time. Memories from later include paisley dresses (her) and electric blue tights with my mother's running shirt (me). Later, there were walks home from middle school in which I insisted on walking in the middle of the road, eliciting screams and later eye rolls. We spent hours on the phone together, as any good duo should, and read one another poems we had written. Once, in a fit of rage and tears, we burned letters to our ex boyfriends in a cooking pot with another girlfriend.
A few weeks ago I called her from the truck, engine still humming to will away the cold, Seattle hip-hop barely audible from the stereo. She could tell, she said, just by the way I was breathing, that I needed that conversation. We no longer communicate in words but more so in subtlety. This is how it is supposed to be.
II.
Ripping open the postage box- the one so much heavier than I expected- I find a mug (handmade) and a bottle of homebrew. Something catches in my throat and I choke it back down. This is how it is supposed to be.
III.
This is how it's supposed to be.
