Adam looked Egyptian. Like his cat-eyes were lined with kohl. He had golden skin and silky black hair. He fainted once because of the way I looked. At my birthday party. I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I said to my mother, delighted, that he must have been twitterpated. Bambi was, of course, one of my favorite movies.
Saular was exotic as well. I don't remember his face. I remember running and playing in a dusty front yard. Chasing his father's chickens while our mothers sat in the house and talked about their abusive husbands and of imminent divorce. He was my friend. I loved him.
Casey was bright-eyed, out-going and ecstatically understanding. She was all snaggle-toothed grins and cuddles at nap-time. She was the best play-ground partner I'd ever had. She was my very best friend in Kindergarten. My only friend. We played with our hands, our slender fingers - making animals with stalk necks that walked around on all fours. Something like a dinosaur. We were pen-pals for the longest time after I moved away. I missed her so much. She never thought I was crazy. Because she was always just as crazy, and it's not insanity if it's legitimized by the appropriate social context. We were on the same page. I loved her like I loved Saular.
I met Seth in 1st grade. He was a year older than me, in 2nd grade. We went to the same elementary school. Everyone made fun of me because I thought I was a cat. I crawled around on all fours during recess and meowed and pretended to wash behind my ears with cupped paw-hands. I wore through the knees of several pairs of leggings with the crawling habit. They called me Catwoman and hissed at me and pulled my long, waist-length hair on the bus to after-school daycare. It was bizarre, I guess, but Seth defended me. The other kids didn't listen to him, and I was till made fun of, but it made me feel better - to have someone on my side. He pushed me on the tree-swing outside of the daycare. We played house. We ate snacks together and played in the sandbox together. He would kiss me on the cheek as he caught the swing, and then push me out again as I giggled. We would climb trees and get covered in pine sap. He told me he loved me. We were best friends. I would stand up for him when the kids at school made fun of him. I daydreamed about what he would look like naked. I wondered if we would grow up and become sweethearts. I wrote about him in my first journal. He moved away without warning. I cried and missed him so much. Daycare was empty. Lonely. I found him on Facebook recently. He's a male model. I wrote him a letter, gushing out my love for him from so long ago. Then I saw his relationship status, and understood his orientation as a denial of my silly crush. He wasn't the last boy interested in boys to be interested in me.
Lauren was my best friend in Roanoke, Virginia. Through 1st, 2nd and half of 3rd grade. I moved away to Florida for the other half of 3rd grade, and we were pen-pals for a while. Before the depression hit, and I lost interest in 5th grade. She didn't like Seth. She made fun of him. Everyone made fun of him. Except me. But Lauren was beautiful, regardless of her hatred of my Seth. I loved her long blond hair and blue eyes. I was jealous of her looks. I wanted to look like that. She had rosy, shiny lips. I didn't realize until later in my life that the fascination that I held alluded to my wanting to kiss them. To kiss her.
Jeffrey was in my 6th grade English class. I sat behind him. I thought he was dreamy. I was shy and reserved around most people, but I would flirt with him when he talked to me, in my own nerdy, non-sexual way.
I was going to a magnet school for the arts in 6th grade. The bus-ride was ridiculously long. I sat with a friend from my neighborhood, named Heather. She had fiery red-orange hair and a bizarre nature. At times violent, at times perverted, with a dirty mouth and an even dirtier mind. I think she grew up to a life of juvenile crime and a record of repeated delinquency. On the bus with us were John, Michael, and Robby. We all flirted, constantly. Back and forth. It was strange dynamic. It's fuzzy now. I'll write more as I remember it.
I met Kerry in Florida, at the Unitarian Universalist church called Spirit of Life. He was a year older than me and had the most alluring pull I'd ever encountered in a human being. I admired him and respected him. The adults listened when he talked, in his quiet, bold voice - about politics, about funding, about the budget, about spirituality. He fascinated me. His eyes were deep, like molten dark chocolate. Edible. Like you could drink in the essence of his soul. He was amazing to me. We dated, briefly, after I moved away. It was long-distance, we were young. He was always so much older than me, mentally, physically, emotionally, and sexually. I wasn't ready for anything he threw my way. He was my first boyfriend, my first love, my first close-mouthed kiss, my first french-kiss. He was all over me when we were alone. Online, in person, anywhere we went. I never knew why he was so attracted to me. It scared me, but there was more to it than that. He made me hot. My loins would catch fire when he was around. I was young, and I had just discovered myself, physically speaking. I would think about him, at night, in the shower. I still have random dreams about him, even now. They happen approximately once a year. But it was never intercourse, in my fantasies. It was always kissing, soft, and sedate. Warm, enticing, and electric. We would be fully clothed, and I couldn't - and still can't - imagine him naked. We would be close, and intimacy would light the match between my legs. It wasn't sloppy, in my head. There was no tongue, no saliva, no secretions, no ejaculations, nothing that I would later come to fantasize about - in my late high school and early college years. And it was different for him. He wanted sex. He wanted sloppy. And I didn't. Couldn't want it. I wanted him, but not the mess that came with having him. It scared me. Put me off. I broke it off and dealt with heartache over him until 2 years ago. I confessed my undying love for him at SUUSI, after carrying it around in my stubborn chest cavity for 8 years. He had a girlfriend. He'd forgotten all about me. No love for me remained. It broke me. Again. But I was eventually able to let it go. It took a few months, but then it was gone. I think it was like a bone that had broken and healed improperly. I needed to break it again to re-set it, so that it would heal the right way.
I thought for a long time that everyone wanted to cuddle their friends. I didn't know it was a crush. It was so non-sexual. It wasn't lust, just simple, child's love. Boy, girl, it didn't matter. It was all the same to me. I knew anatomy. I knew there were differences. I knew boys married girls. But I thought that was just officiality. I thought everyone loved each other, regardless of gender. I didn't understand until middle school, 8th grade, really. Listening to Eminem. Faggot, homo. It was wrong, in their eyes, to love the same sex. To marry the same sex. Which still doesn't make sense to me. Love is love. People are people. Marriage and union and commitment are the same, across the board, regardless of anatomy. Regardless of gender. I started to focus on boys more than girls, in 8th grade. I thought that the girls I'd been close to were just blips in my past. Nothing to pay attention to now, going into my adolescence.
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