my best friend’s father taught me how to ride a bike and i remember my own parents being vaguely disappointed, i remember the summer before junior year and i remember licking salt off my solstice arms, submerged and writhing, two years, i remember my mouth tasting like elk and lip balm and lube, trailing stars traced on the shower wall and october, wool, purple asters on the walk home, i remember standing at the bottom of the staircase in wayman looking up at you, my angel, i remember the cherry-red-star rolling paper, half a pull, choked-up homosexual boys, honey-blue eyes, i remember seeing my breath in the barn that night, frozen february stars, i remember dry-split-knuckle-iron on my tongue, lingers, i remember laying shirtless on a cold-bright hill, cross finger-painted on my stomach, sweet-blood, i bring his august mother flowers, clicking-whirring VCR, my angel, i remember giving you a birthday gift, left-too-early-full-of-grief, warmth of a ribcage pressed against my wrist, scraped out beating lungs with my fingers, curling, i remember carving a star into my sulfur-rabbit flank, my angel.

Alifair Durand McDonnell is a College first-year studying Dance. “you, my” is a year-long love letter to her partner, her childhood best friend, and warm-summer-cold-winter stars.