Remember

Published in Livina Press Magazine, Issue 10. Available for purchase on Amazon. 
Author Bio: Danielle Patino is a Master's student in Manhattan at Hunter College's School of Education. She has a BA in Creative Writing and a minor in Religion. To read her book reviews or her full list of poetry publications, visit her blog storybeforeslumber.com

Original: 11/16/18.

Remember 

When we've grown 
To where it's all 
Almost lost 

I'll still smile at 
The 12 years olds 
Buying popcorn 
At the movie theater; 
We'd throw kernels down 
Our shirts, let butter make pimples 
On our breasts,
To be sushed
By a teenage usher 
Who envied us. 

And when the boy teases the girl 
With the cherry red face - 
He'll grab her phone 
Not because he wants it 
But because she says 
He can't have it - 
I'll feel the same splash of water 
That hit when 
You dropped my sidekick 
In a backyard pool. 

And we laughed; we laughed 
Like we'd never 
Be bothered with adulthood, 
It would never 
Find us here. 

And I'll see, 
Like a montage in a movie 
We're too distracted
To keep on watching, 
The wholesome way we 
First found love 
But not the ugly way 
We left it. 
This is my only retribution;

They say 
Time heals all wounds 
But leaving it there, 
Back in 2016, 
Was more than a wound, 
It was a glitch in the matrix - 
Something 
That should never 
Have been - 
And I will not 
Remember it that way,
I will let that 
Be lost. 

But I'll remember finding 
Your armpit 
The best place 
To hide my face 
Even when you're 
Who I was 
Hiding it from. 
And I'll remember 
You letting me;
You giving me 
Your space,
Holding me there,
Kissing my forehead 
When I didn't 
Kiss you back. 

And I'll tell my children about 
Sneaking into your house 
Through the first floor 
Window,
Sneaking out in the morning 
While your grandma cooked eggs 
In the kitchen
And your father worked online
In the living room;
About buying donuts for your mother 
At the coffee shop on Acorn 
Before parting 
In two different ways 
Down the street; 

I'll tell them how it was 
To never need to let you go; 
To call 
When I got home safely.
To sleep until 4
With an alarm set for 5,
To wake and have my father 
Drive me back to you.