This Is How You Loved Me Before I Could Love You

photo by Daniel Foster

When we were nineteen, you were impossibly fast. You’d disappear and reappear far ahead of me, beating me to bars or the library or Louie’s Cafe where we would order the BEST (a bacon, egg, sprouts, and tomato sandwich) and drink never-ending coffees and pretend not to flirt. 

I’d walk faster and faster, short-cutting through the enchanted forest, that small copse of trees at the edge of LSU left dark and unruly.

Do you remember? How I’d sweat?

Between here and there were only so many paths, and I tried them all.

And every time you were waiting far ahead, leaning and languid, loose limbs saying, I’ve been here for hours, where were you? 

The each of us grinning. 

I’d try to guess your secret, but not-so-secretly I loved not knowing—believing in magic, maybe. In your magic, maybe. 

When I finally found out about the tunnels, I was even more enchanted—you running in the dim and damp, streaming ahead, you underground just to shape something strange and special. 

A gift. 

The magic in the trick is in the effort, the hard of it hidden. 

So all that is left is delight.