Ode to a Gluten-Free Romance

To Stephen, who couldn’t eat bread:

You were my first idea of love. A five year old little man of mystery. Freckles, a gap toothed grin: your cologne was the syrup from your breakfast that morning or the summer dirt from the t-ball field. You were Superman, GI Joe, maybe even Ken. We catapulted off couch cushions, climbed the rocky steep of the jungle gym, and skied down its slopes.
We rode a bright, ornate merry-go-round during those years. Orange and metallic-- it became a living kaleidoscope when our fathers would push us. We saw the world spinning around us, a collage of purple, green, blue and sunlight. We held on tight and laughed.
Your family moved away. And you went too. I remember thinking you would kiss me good-bye. In my mind, I would run out the front door of my house in my yellow sundress and watch your car ride away to your new far-away home. But Stephen, you never came back, and I forgot about you. And that’s ok, because in my mind, when we were spinning on the merry-go-round I knew what I wanted.
But for me, that merry-go-round stopped for a long time. It rusted from its idleness— the orange paint peeling and flaking off unto the dry ground. I stood at my front door many times though, in my yellow sundress, and said goodbye to a few others who took me further and further away from that fast-paced ride of my past.
But maybe I will one day return to that merry-go-round. And maybe someone will hop on with me and we will see the world in a collage of colors. And we will laugh and get dizzy. Maybe he won’t eat bread either.