i was 15 and it was valentine's day. he gave me a far-too-large graphic tee as a gift.
he and I spent time out together, two homeschooled kids in a public park, escaping, for a moment, the dreary tumult of their abusive homes. we had been friends for years already, and lovers for half a year, keeping each other from spiralling into complete isolation and depression. i worried about him and he worried about me, and for years, this was the way of things.
i am wearing the shirt now, having grown into it perfectly. it's loose and soft from years of use in a way that makes it comfortable to wear in sleep.
over that time, we slowly learned together to extricate ourselves from the forces which abused us: the family, the church, the state, patriarchy, and gender. I realized I was a woman, he realized he was a man. in a process of collaborative growth, we shaped each other to an extent only made possible by our circumstances as eachothers' primary contact with the outside world, such that my identity feels eternally bound up in him, inseparable from him. he taught me how to be human.
this shirt is a bit worn out though. years and successive washes have dotted the graphic with cracks and tiny flakes through which the calm navy-blue of the fabric beneath can be seen, and a couple small round holes have formed on the right side. the colors are just as bright.
when the pain was too much, he comforted me. when I needed a burner phone for emergency calls, in case my parents ever broke another of my bones, he helped me get one. when I ran away from home at 16, his house was where I walked. 9 hours, starting in the dead of night, limping into morning, and I thought of nothing but him. all that, just to be sent back. and when I finally did move out at 18, I followed him across the state. I have now been free for almost 4 years, and, though I miss him a lot, it is easily one of the healthiest, happiest points in my life thus far.
the shirt was a very sweet gift at the time, and it's only grown sweeter with the years as its fabric has softened, as its words have taken on new personal meaning, and as my memories of him have become more scarce and important. I hope to have this shirt for a long time. on it, there is one sentence, alongside art of a crested gecko jumping free from the grasp of its owner: "No hand can contain me."
