i.

We were counting down the hours till your departure and
we compared battle scars and stories, of knees scraped and
elbows knocked, of bicycles and falling down from seesaws.
When I spoke of cycling into a tree, you teased, Did that happen
                                                                           last year?,
safe in the knowledge of
my clumsiness, and I pretended to be offended.

Later on we played that game where we took turns naming
                                                              all the airlines we
knew, fluent at first, then eyes slowly glancing
towards the departure board, finally moving on to making up
                                                                                  airlines
when we were stumped.

There must be an Air Canada, I protested, and later on you
                                                                        insisted that
There must be an Air South Korea, going by the same logic.

Or did you say Air Taiwan, I cannot recall now, even if it was just 
                                                                        last night.
I remember pinching your sides, indignant in the face of your
                                                                        blatant
cheating, trying to touch you any way I could.

ii.

Over dinner one night you said you would not kiss me at the
                                                                              airport.
There are so many ways in which I could have responded
but did not. Who wants to kiss you anyway?, I could have said,
teasing but laced with hurt, or perhaps
Can I kiss you, then?, deliberately obtuse.

But I didn't. And later on, you apologised as you climbed into bed,
                                                                                     and I
pretended not to
know what you were talking about as your arms
crept around me in the dark.
It's okay, I said. It's okay.

I was more bewildered than hurt, not having been in a situation
                                                                                 where
there might be kissing in an airport before.
I wish you hadn't said that. I was not expecting to be kissed
                                                                           before, and
you made me feel
like I should have been, and then I was.

You left me behind with not a kiss but a hug, and in between the
We'll keep in touch and I'll see you sometime soon and
Maybe even in New York
you said something.