the chain from off the door

tall, strong, and slightly foolish

you’re tall, strong, and slightly foolish as you walk in the door. you’ve got an unnatural swing in your step and a high degree of uncertainty in your eyes. i met you once, out in the october cold. you were wearing a pink shirt to a themed party and i was half-enamored of a boy with an american name, african skin, and mexican heritage. i’m always half enamored of someone. and if it isn’t him, then it’s your climbing buddy. and if it isn’t him, it’s the middle hitter on your volleyball team. i’m always half somebody else’s and you knew it on the night we met. you had swag that we drank from all around your shoulders. your climbing buddy told me that you thought i was cute. “it’s gonna take more than that boy,” i thought, but i grinned all through the cold of halloween weekend. you could crunch a thousand orange leaves with the handsome patterns of your face, i thought, but not so much your name. 

i know no one’s immaculate. perfection is a figment of a poet’s idealistic imagination, certainly not my own. but when you came to my mind, elusive, i thought “that boy seems pretty on top of his game.” and when you chose me that night that the middle blocker on your volleyball team let me know for sure that i would not live up to the promise of somebody else, i could not settle it down in my head like little house on the prairie. “too good to be true” is the phrase that comes to mind still. you’re tall, strong, and slightly foolish. you don’t mind a good joke or turn of phrase. i can poke fun at you until the night runs low on gasoline and darkness and still you’ll reply in kind, nudging my ribs. your face is so straight, it reminds me of biology class. your features so sharply handsome it makes me remember someone else. but you are all your own person, tall and strong and slightly foolish. i am not so afraid of your goodness anymore, though you still give me back massages for free.