We Were Young

Notes

The fairy-dust must have fallen free,
sparkled across a floor I left behind
twenty years before.
Now all your old letter holds
is a list of hamster names
and a serviceable 'I love you' on
paper pulled from a school exercise book.

Back then
it was full of code
the names came attached to your friends
who knew about me, my new pet, us
as we made belongings of each other
in those letters to and fro,
wove each other in,
an arm around a shoulder, a knowing
that we’d be the ones who didn’t part.

We did, of course, but still
we come together every now and then
to look at our love notes, to laugh
at all the hope we used to have,
how opened we were, how rawly young.