Going home the weekend the boy I used to love died

GRAEME GUTTMANN

1.

I always arrive with a wound,
something for my mom to tend
to. She cuts my hair this time,
tells me he died the day before,
points out the deer in the yard,
tells me I need to take better care 
of myself. I lock eyes with the stag 
through the window until my gaze
scares it away. 


2.

I cry while reading the news. He went right through 
the windshield. Died on impact. He never 
liked wearing a seatbelt or the way it wrinkled 
his clothes. It would get in the way when we snuck 
to his car during lunch, left campus to share cigarettes—
I was obsessed with the way his lips held the filter. 

He was always careful with me—in the way his fingers 
brushed my chapped lips, in the way his hands never forced, 
only suggested. In the way he always had an excuse 
at the ready in case we were seen together. We were always 
partners for a class project, but I wanted to be caught in a position 
where the lie would be clear like glass. Even the last time I saw him 
when we were both in college, he winked at me while smacking 
his gum, pulled me into a bathroom stall, left me there, the door ajar. 


3.

I’m in the car with my father when we see the deer in the road, 
neck split open. I think of him as we pull over, headlights 
illuminating the animal’s body the way only the dark allowed. 
My dad took the buck by its antlers, dragged it into the grass, checked 
to see if it was still breathing with two fingers on the bloodied neck. 
I wondered if you can even feel a deer’s pulse that way.

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GRAEME GUTTMANN is an editor and writer based out of Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in 2023. He works in entertainment media as an editor and film and television critic.