Annabelle
When someone is it?
It’s not like a game of tag
where you count,
eyes-closed,
against a tree
then run squealing
and tag the slowest
runner.
Christopher wasn’t even running.
He was standing right next to me
like he was a tree
that I could’ve leaned
against and he would’ve
wrapped his arms
like branches around me.
I’d never really looked at him too closely before.
But now, only inches away,
his big brown eyes drinking me in,
his hand brushing back my hair,
his tall body bending toward me
as if he wanted to blend into me,
I saw him for the first time.
And now I’m wondering: what will next time be like?
Will it be hard to stand around handing out flyers,
trying to get people to see what’s wrong
with the world when Christopher is around,
because all I’ll want to do is stand near him
and see if he looks at me like that again,
because when he did, something in me flipped,
making an acrobat of my emotions?