i

skye,

would you remember?

try to remember-

when you were eight-years-old,

basking in the sunshine

and in your innocence,

giggling with your girlfriends.

you were slightly chubby and always had

raspberry jam around your lips after lunchtime.

I wanted to wipe away that jam but...

I have always been too scared to touch you

even as a little boy;

frightened that my grubby fingertips would taint you

or spoil your beauty like so many weeds. or somehow ruin you.

but you had the ability to touch me

without even placing a finger on me,

so I was content watching you from the football pitch

where I sat with my friends.

then, there came a day when

those school-ground bullies taunted you with distorted insults.

they'd say:

"look how fat you've gotten!"

"look at those horrible freckles. do you have mud on your face?"

"she looks ugly doesn't she?"

those fucking bastards deserved to die, I could have should have fucking-

you weren't ever ugly, skye.

i wish i told you that sooner,

but i could never speak properly around you.

after all i was a simple schoolboy-

a simple schoolboy you only knew at the time to be your classmate.

all i wanted, even back then, was to be

viewed as your saviour.

i know you'd slap me squarely across

the jaw if you were still... to hear me say

something so vile.

but i remember the ecstasy

that came

one day,

when blood dripped from my knuckles and I watched

two older boys bawl like babies because I had punched them.

it was their fault for tugging on your plaits and making you cry.

when you found out, you threw your arms around me,

hugging me. squeezing me.

i dropped the toys i was holding

just to hold you closer,

and they shattered on the ground.

i didn't care that my toy cars

lost their wheels and their

tiny windows lay in fragments

against the concrete.

i didn't care that my brother's old teddy bear

lost his glass eyes, or that it's fragile

fur tore, spewing cotton.

i only cared about you.

and then you said to me,

"you'll always be my best friend.

no matter what."

finally, you had touched me.

and then you made that damned promise

the one that drove me insane.

"mummy says I can't get married for at least another twenty

years. I know it's ages and ages away, but I promise I'll want to marry you.

mummy told me to go for nice boys

and

you just stood up for me, so you're my hero. and I want to get married to a hero."

"I promise I'll get married to you too." I smiled widely

into your hair. I didn't blink once. I could have swallowed you whole.

inevitably, there was a difference.

and it was that my

promise wasn't just a childhood

pinkie-swear.

it was an absolute blood-tie.