unlove poem

after Nate Marshall

our glances meet at the sinks. we walk backwards into

the stalls, three apart.i am red converse

and you are ugg boots and we only share in toilet sounds.

now you unpeel your eyes from the floor, we cross paths,

you briefly forget i exist. i uncut my hair, it

pulls back into my scalp in clumps. two years of silence

retreat, it is december and the cell tower stills

and the radio waves unwaver from the air, the voice

on the phone unasks what happened to us, the sobs garble, i am ungiving

my apologies, those sounds are now echos, a premonition, now

the phone unhaunts my thoughts, i undial your number, and the keypad

stops screaming at me. we have never hurt each other before.

at thirteen, we are awkward and too serious. we retreat into our bodies

the summer before high school: breasts shrinking, stomachs rounding,

faces smoothing. you are excited, having heard about adolescent love

and car keys. i want to quote Hemingway and drink black coffee

without wincing. our curfew dwindles but so do our fears.

soon enough we will be young enough to relearn laughing

with our mouths wide open, lips scraping braces. soon enough we will forget

what it feels like to be always untethered. from here, i stand at the center

of a path, dead ends on either side. down one way, we are

twelve, sitting criss-cross applesauce at camp where we are

meeting for the first time. i unlearn your name, you mine.

we are strangers in both directions.