Looking Through the Window
He is just the same as he has always been,
But somehow he is different.
The smile is the same,
the glitter of the eyes,
the way he brushes his hair back underneath his baseball cap;
but something has changed.
I don’t know why, but when I look at him today
My stomach knots
and my knees weaken,
and when I pass him a pencil and he thanks me,
my fingers tremble just a little.
Today his face doesn’t remind me of the boy next door,
my best friend,
and the mouth that shared mud pies with me,
that same mouth,
I no longer want to push into the sand.
Everything seems to be a little clearer,
like a hazy bubble surrounding me has finally burst
Leaving me soaked in confusion and sweaty palms.
-MWE
9 October 1999
