I knew what it was like to keep something close, just in case there was some error in the universe.

please believe me and my boys made up handshakes that were just ours, ones where we would slap hands and then make new, shared designs out of our bent fingers, pulled back and punctuated with a snap. We would break them out before parting ways at the bus stop to go to our separate schools, and break them out again upon our return at the end of the

Shit talking is a right, a gift, a mercy with a lineage all its own.

But we know our enemies by how foolishly they trample upon what we know as affection. How quickly they find another language for what they cannot translate as love.

even he was at odds with his own patience, wanting to measure his ability to sprint and his ability to savor.

You will surely forgive me if I promised we would talk about our enemies when what I meant was that I want to begin this brief time we have together by talking about love, and you will surely forgive me if an enemy stumbles their way into the architecture of affection from time to time.

Do not be fooled by the weapons I refuse to lay down. I come to you today with gratitude in knowing the fight cannot be won. Let the hair turn its drab colors and, perhaps, slowly begin to depart down the drain. Let the pain in the knee linger as a reminder that movement might one day come with a price, if I am lucky enough to make it that long.

And the other thing about faces in dreams is that there is nothing stopping the brain from delivering the face of an enemy to you in your sleep. And not only delivering the face of an enemy but also building a world inside of which your enemy might, for a moment, be a lover. Might be someone you would fight for, someone you would die for. Someone

All kinds of affection tucked underneath the talking of shit.