I loved a boy in elementary school with shaggy hair and bruised knees, and he couldn’t sit still in class.

I loved a boy in junior high who I didn’t even know. He was experimenting. And not with science.

I loved a boy my freshman year of high school, who was constant like the rising sun, who told me he loved me more than the days I was with him. I was sure it was to be forever.

I loved a boy on the day that I graduated, tears in my eyes as I made a speech, “here’s to everyone that I knew here.” And it was mostly to him.

I loved a boy when I turned twenty-three, who I hadn’t seen in seven long years, only passed on sidewalks and in corridors. (Of course he wasn’t actually there, but I had carried him with me.)

On my fortieth birthday I wished on my candles that the boy I loved would come to me, someday I’d run straight into him, face to face. 

It was all the same boy, too.