"You look older," he said from the doorway.
"Do I?"
He nodded, still standing there, watching me the same way he'd done at eighteen.
Three yellow hair clips sat atop my head
forming a crown
like the yellow headband I'd worn in elementary,
everything pulled back so I could wash my tired skin which consumes my face
with purpose and precision
I scrub around my nose and eyes carefully;
every night for five years he's watched me in the same way from the same
doorway in the apartment we never thought we'd share
because in high school he thought himself perfect and I thought him callous,
conspiring, and cold.
I took off my shirt and folded it,
I took off my pants and folded them,
both to be neatly sat by the sink while I showered;
I warmed lotion in my palms and lifted my chin to check my neck in the mirror,
wondering if the swelling had returned,
he watched me cautiously.
My forehead makes me look older,
"It's my forehead I suppose."
"No. We're just different now."
My jawline is now firm and defined, my chest has a purpose other than breath when
it moves, my body—once perpetually sickly thin—has sustaining deposits of fat
on it like my mother predicted it would;
his skin has wrinkled some around the eyes and his jawline is sharp as mine, he
walks with dignity;
his hair is streaked with grey and mine with white,
"We are older, aren't we?" I said with a sigh.
He went back to bed and sat on top of our yellowed blanket in the same silence he
said his father kept,
watching the doorway as I hung my necklace on the doorknob to soon accidentally
forget after a shower like my mother used to.
Under the water I let out another sigh,
heavily and creaking,
my body laid down to die.
