we are unusual and tragic and alive

In the house where I grew up, I massaged your thigh beneath the table during dinner with my family, felt your socked foot against my own while I scraped the mashed potatoes around my plate. Later, we cuddled in the tiny bed beneath which I had been convinced monsters resided. We kissed in the kitchen and in the doorway and on the stairs and in my old room, in front of my little brother who wrinkled his nose at us and in front of someone who is like an older brother who pretended not to notice. While you looked at my baby pictures, I thought about how different it all could’ve been, had I known you before, how the span of my entire life would’ve come undone at the seams and made me fall apart with feelings I wouldn’t have been prepared to handle. When it got so late that it started to become early, I fell asleep on your shoulder to the sweet sounds of you whispering in my ear.