I liked your mohawk. I liked you daddy issues and though I never met him, I know they were all in your head. I liked your booming voice, your west Massachusetts lingo. I liked making you green tea, and that you drank it not just because I made it for you. I liked reading with you. Hearing lessons from economics explained so rationally, with your concern. I didn't like but I needed your reaction to the worst news a college boy can get, how you were consecutive earthquakes, one after another, and your skin the comfort of sand on beaches. I liked telling you my dreams, even the disturbing ones. I liked eating omelettes with you. I liked imagining you in 15 years with a bouncing baby boy on your shoulder. I liked your qualms, because they were all of mine too.

I liked waking up with puke in my hair at seven in the morning on the floor with my bedding still wet from the wash, opening my bleary eyes to such a self-loathing snapshot of a room, and seeing you sleeping curled on the bed. You made it better. I liked the beer you drank, and I liked how boyishly you gave me an elephant necklace one evening when we barely knew each other. You accepted that I got out of bed with you to write instead of sleep. I liked your taste in movies, your sharply chosen music, the demeanor of a chain link fence held up to everybody: a friendly invitation to climb.

I liked that you rock climbed. You went for runs in the middle of the night. I liked that you let yourself cry, and that you haven't told my secrets. I liked your tanned shoulders, your jutting hipbones, your backwards hats. I liked the way you asked. I liked that you called me one day and asked if we could call instead of text. I liked your stoicism, your eastern deep breathing, taught to me through fingers in moonlight dusting between the grey slats of my shades. You taught me while I was pushing you away.

I liked that you always put the seat down and left our shower super clean. I liked your feet. I liked your naivete, and that you only half fell for me. I liked that you loved the rain as much as I did. I liked that you actively read books, though I wonder if it was for me. I liked that you did to me what I did to others, because I understand your flight like a bird understands how to nest. We were lovers, but never nesters.