Seventeen

A Poem by Alex Baker

Sometimes we fall in love so blindly that we feel hollow and overflowing at the same time. This was a time like that for me.

i compare all others to the feeling of his fingers locked with mine (his thumb smoothing over my knuckles easily), swinging, smelling the ozone of wet-pavement, bark dust and metal and his sweat, compelling and dangerous, perfect tandem, and then how my heart and stomach switched places, smashing and thumping wildly, when he said into my hair "you make me so happy" and how glad i was that he couldn't see my electric eyes and shark-tooth smile because my joy was terrifying in its intensity. and i felt his grip at the base of my neck, pressed over the tiny mountain range there, creating the conductor and catalyst that the current of my synapses went through, magnifying them.

i couldn't feel the cold of 11 pm in march, and the frogs were deafening but the road was deserted (i remember saying "how does anyone sleep with the frogs making so much noise?" from between my tap-tap-tapping teeth - alive and bright and trembling in the dark), and the shock of static from the plastic slide carved up with other initials like ours, was nothing compared to his body caging me in, solid and towering, shoulders and thighs a testament to hours a day on a dirty river, disciplining his physiology, the edge of an oar callus catching my lip when he leaned down to cup my cheeks and kiss me. kiss me. and. kiss me at every red light stop sign straight bit of road taking me home. and kiss me. and how my voice and body shook when i said "i'm glad i make you happy". because what was threatening to get out instead was "i need you, i need you"