We Are People Here. We Are Not Numbers

In the infancy of our relationship,
when we were almost exclusively hanging out
together with friends,
Cathy and I went to St. John's Applefest
It was held every fall in the parking lot of the Catholic church
I had attended as a youth,
converting the quarter-mile of parish grounds into a second-rate carnival
full of cheap thrills and poorly-maintained rides
We meandered through the crowds
like tourists,
eventually ending up at the pirate ship at the far end of the fair
(A mechanical boat that rose into the sky,
then swooped back down in the other direction like a swallow diving for insects)
Cathy was nervous and began to fidget, refusing to get in line
before our friends and I talked her into going
When the ride started,
any romantic idea I had of holding hands or an embrace
was quickly abandoned when I saw the white-knuckled grip on the safety rail
like she feared for her life