there are glances, and there are stares, and then there's what you and I do, which I guess is what you'd call glimpses. I don't see you, I see the color of your hair, the pens I hated and would never deign to borrow from you (no matter how much I needed one) and I see the sneakers that you wore the night I got too drunk and spent most of my night on your bathroom floor.

do all of these things belong exclusively to you? other people own red Converse, Sharpie pens, have that shade of blacker-than-black hair, and yet this particular collection of associations is all that I have of you. I have the particular way the bass of your voice thrums underneath everyone else's conversations, I've kept the scar on the back of your right hand, and somewhere very deep I've locked away your mint taste.

sometimes I wonder if you see me in blue eyes, bright orange backpacks, permanent marker tattoos. the burn on the collar of my favorite shirt, because it was dark and you went to light my cigarette and missed. I shrieked and you laughed but it was scary so I shoved you for being such a dickhead and-

I've put all that away too. the shirt in the back of my closet and the rest of the cigarettes I stole from you in the bottom of my trash can (until I can throw them away without my parents seeing) and most especially I have locked away the words we, us, together.