Both of our names start with the letter G, and maybe that said something about how wildly different, and yet, and how wildly the same we are.
Friends are rare to me
They come like family heirlooms;
Quietly passed down, whispered between generations
Until suddenly your 13, and amidst the drama of boys and gossip and nasty teachers
It’s suddenly placed in your hands
And you feel all that has come before you is suddenly just within distance
In a look
A stare
A smile
I seemed to have found you at the perfect time,
Colliding paths
Merged
I remembered–I found how amazing it was to talk about shared hobbies
About movies we both thought were cruel, but beautiful
I remember the tears, rolling quietly down my face, as I looked up to the stars and thought to myself,
Is this what it feels like to be blessed?
But you had a sharpness to you, intelligently, and emotionally
And it hurt me–it really did
I was jealous, of all you were and all I was not; and I hated that those two things were nearly identical.
I was in such close proximity to who I wanted to be, and it made me insane
You bit me, hard and fast–so fast I didn’t even know I was bleeding–because I was not gushing of it, I was not stabbed.
But the blood was there, and it was dripping quietly as I walked beside you.
As we laughed and made plans.
I was bleeding.
For you.
And in some ways, we bounded each other up; put bandaids on cuts that never healed, on the path your family set you on, and on the things they required of you–and began to require of yourself.
But then I realized the wound was bigger than a cut,
and that it was not my place to fix them.
But I will always remember you. Your face.
The way it squinted in the sun–
It was bright and hot on the day of the fair. When we shared that plate, blueberry hill, before we went.
We pretended we were peasants, going to save the queen.
A friend comes so very rare to me
I hold on to them like lovers
And keep our memories in velvet-lined boxes
To remember them forever; because they deserve it
For not what they’ve done, what nasty things they’ve said, what they’ve regretted to say
But for what they’ve taught me–they should be honored.
I love you so much
To many goodbyes, my dearest friend
It was so nice to see you again, after decades apart.
