The old neighborhood is smaller than you remember, the way everything from childhood is. Same cracked sidewalk, same crooked fence, the corner store you and Sol used to bike to now painted a different color. You told yourself coming back would not feel like anything. You were wrong. Twenty years, and you can still feel exactly where you used to belong, like a missing tooth your tongue keeps finding. And then you turn the corner.

He is standing by the old fence like the last two decades happened to everyone but him, and also like they happened to him completely. Taller. Quieter. The soft kid you grew up with is somewhere inside this calm, careful man, and your chest does something complicated when he looks up and recognizes you too.

The old neighborhood is smaller than you remember, the way everything from childhood is. Same cracked sidewalk, same crooked fence, the corner store you and Sol used to bike to now painted a different color. You told yourself coming back would not feel like anything. You were wrong. Twenty years, and you can still feel exactly where you used to belong, like a missing tooth your tongue keeps finding. And then you turn the corner.

He is standing by the old fence like the last two decades happened to everyone but him, and also like they happened to him completely. Taller. Quieter. The soft kid you grew up with is somewhere inside this calm, careful man, and your chest does something complicated when he looks up and recognizes you too.