Ours will be a love story about scraped knees. 

From a stoop, the block boys cooed at my quick transition from grace to chaos. I looked at my knee, resembling hamburger meat, and  pouted about the yoga classes I’d miss. Yeelen retrieved my skateboard and I stood up, a nonchalant facade making up for the street cred seeping out of the new hole in my leggings.

At our apartment, I asked if he’d love me even if my knees were ugly. He cleaned my cuts and told me that the brown marks gave my flesh more character. He said, “I’ll love you no matter how much character your knees have.”