Change in Status

First, he wrote it in a patch of new, wet cement one night at the intersection, for everyone to see, “Tad Loves Kimberley.” Maybe they were still in high school, or one of them worked at the café on the corner, and the other at the ice cream shop. Then he encircled it with a big heart shape: Tad Loves Kimberley. And everyone who knew them, knew it too.

But then later something had changed, drastically, and this graffiti started to appear everywhere, scrawled all over the walls and fences, trash cans, dumpsters, desperately, signaling a change in their status. (Sometimes with double and triple exclamation points.) “Kimberley Jones Eats Pussy.” (often tagged: Tad)  Kimberley Jones Eats Pussy!!

But now, the only thing that remains is the initial flush of those heart-rushed moments, still preserved in cement at the intersection, washed clean by all the rains this year, almost as fresh as that first day of love, in wet cement — Tad Loves Kimberley — along with this big heart. Still there, after all these years: Tad Loves Kimberley.