Sometimes, I think of you as that bitch in my sophomore gym class who always ran faster than everyone with her long, tan legs and hit the ball harder with her long, tan arms and bragged about her intense exercise regimen with her long, tan ego, even though all it did was make everyone hate her more. I always wanted to be like, “Congrats, girlfriend, your resting heart rate is lower than mine. Have fun checking your pulse and your participation points while everyone else goes out for pancakes.” So maybe you think you’re hot shit because you can regenerate needless cells faster than anywhere else in the brain. Great job. But don’t think you’re going to be invited to parties any time soon because the rest of his brain hates your guts.

Sometimes, I think of you as a pioneer. Sure, the colon’s cool, the colon’s adequate. But, who even knows what the colon does, am I right? “Processes waste in preparation for its elimination”? Gross. But everyone knows what the brain does. So you guys moved out of the colon, and some of your friends settled near the lungs, others by the spine. But YOU. You had goals. You had dreams. You kept on going until you hit the head. And, boy, did you pillage and plunder. How you swelled with his savory memories.

Sometimes, I think of you as a blameless little balloon filling up with too much air. Rapidly, you’re expanding and you have no choice but to grow bigger and bigger as the air fills you. His steroids are trying to counteract this, like a needle poking holes in you to let the air out. But now it’s a race between the air and the needle. How much air can you hold? Are there enough pinpricks to keep you from bursting?

Sometimes, I think of you as tar—black, clinging, oozing. You seep into his brain, dribbling and soaking into every shadowed crevice. You coat his neurons until they’re heavy and black and can’t fire properly, so now signals can’t reach his hands as they try to line a fishing rod, his arms as they try to swing a golf club, his voice and mouth and tongue as he tries to order breakfast with his family.

Sometimes, I think of you as a thief. Like the one that broke into his and Nana’s house, the one that stole their cherished possessions, among them the fraternity pin he gave Nana when he lavaliered her. Except in darkness, you’re not stealing pins and pendants. You’re taking away the memory of her face, beautiful and eighteen, as he pinned her. You’re taking away the image of his daughter shooting a hole through their fence when he tried to teach her how to use a BB gun, and him decades later accidentally shooting the same gun at their glass front door while hunting a neighborhood cat (and then pretending like he didn’t know what happened when Nana came home and the glass shattered as she closed the door). And you’re taking away me at seven, on a Sunday at brunch, putting on his Valpo hat and, upon his requesting it back, telling him I’d be going to Valpo just like him when I was older, and feeling his warm hand pat the hat farther onto my head.

Always when I think of you, all my petty problems—about boys and schoolwork and my impending graduation—shrink toward invisibility. And I’m left wishing I were with him now, close enough to curl up in his lap, count the few silver hairs on his head, kiss his whiskered cheek, and put back on his Valpo cap, worn and snug.