Summer Games

I wanted to imagine us like little "cute" children.

I wanted to tell you endless stories about me as a stubborn child, and the tire swing I dearly loved tied up to the lone guava tree in the middle of our makeshift playground.

I wanted to give you Yaki gum balls and watch your eyes become tiny slits on your face, see your tongue turn green with Pintura.

I wanted to bring you back to the enervating adventures of my childhood, and call you different names in the slight dark of dusk, while the church bells signalled time for prayer.

I wanted to say your name in a hushed whisper enclosed inside a prayer, light a candle and tell you that this flame will burn because of you. And you alone.

I wanted to sing you nursery rhymes with the accompaniment of piano, wanted to sing you all the old songs from my father’s cassette tapes, wanted to sing you the alphabet and stop at the first letter of your name.

I wanted to show you my picture books, tell you how much I know about the solar system (you wear rings like Saturn, I twirl around you in a dance as if you were the sun and I was some planet you will never touch, because touching me would mean I would disintegrate into pieces, burst into a grand cosmic explosion.) And I wouldn’t want that.

But I wanted to touch you anyway, innocent like a preschool classmate of mine, swaying our held hands as we hang them for a split-second in the air, as if readying this beautiful togetherness for a beautiful photograph.

And I wanted to play summer games with you, remember all these moments as if you belonged to a summer childhood memory of mine, as I counted to ten when you wanted to hide and you wanted me to seek, and I knew, always knew, that it was you behind the curtains, it was you all along who I had to find, and I always knew where you were anyway.