Poetry: Lament for a Best Friend
Lament for a Best Friend
When we were children we shared the same dreams,
We sighed the same sighs and we screamed the same screams.
Yet when we met again the other day,
You said things I never thought you’d say.
Fifteen years ago we both thought that the world
Was beautiful and endless, full of choice,
Like a map just waiting to be unfurled.
Yet now that we’re old enough to find our voice,
I see how much further inward for you it’s curled.
I remember that I checked out banned books for you,
We sat in the tree behind my house and you read, one chapter at a time,
What you had been denied.
You loved fantasy and were deprived of magic.
They told your parents it was wrong: the devil’s work.
We never truly believed in any magic not of our own making,
Just childish secrecy and midnight wondering.
We laughed because your mother thought I was a good influence.
[*Poem*]A decade ago you were the only one who knew my fears.
Thank you for sharing a little of the shit I went through,
I’d like to look back on the innocence of those years,
But we both know that no nostalgia can make that true.
These memories are why your rejection of me brings me to tears.
I would ride my bike to your house at least twice a week.
I picked up the phone when you called, day or night,
I helped you discreetly bury the evidence when you burnt an entire batch of cookies.
You took hours and hours of your life to teach me,
(Unsuccessfully) to knit; the best way to make pizza dough
You told me I was clever and important when I needed it most.
You told me you couldn’t wait to get out, leave home;
Even then, your parents’ world was suffocating you.
I felt so guilty leaving you behind to go to school;
We knew then that it was the end of an age
No more time and space for our youthful misrule.
We were both ready to turn a new page;
I thought we would remain the same, and I was a fool.
Over the years the world has made us different women,
Strong, as you knew we’d be, maybe even enough to
Square off against a cold and unforgiving future, more or less alone.
I don’t know why I stayed silent - perhaps I was afraid,
Yet ignorance always screams louder than truth.
These ugly words were placed in your mouth by another’s hand;
Last December, you told me I was unnatural and wrong.
(You didn’t know you did, but my heart hurts all the same.)
* * *
I dump my poetry on you at the beginning of every summer, it seems. Though, now that I wrote this one, it doesn't hurt anymore.
When we were children we shared the same dreams,
We sighed the same sighs and we screamed the same screams.
Yet when we met again the other day,
You said things I never thought you’d say.
Fifteen years ago we both thought that the world
Was beautiful and endless, full of choice,
Like a map just waiting to be unfurled.
Yet now that we’re old enough to find our voice,
I see how much further inward for you it’s curled.
I remember that I checked out banned books for you,
We sat in the tree behind my house and you read, one chapter at a time,
What you had been denied.
You loved fantasy and were deprived of magic.
They told your parents it was wrong: the devil’s work.
We never truly believed in any magic not of our own making,
Just childish secrecy and midnight wondering.
We laughed because your mother thought I was a good influence.
[*Poem*]A decade ago you were the only one who knew my fears.
Thank you for sharing a little of the shit I went through,
I’d like to look back on the innocence of those years,
But we both know that no nostalgia can make that true.
These memories are why your rejection of me brings me to tears.
I would ride my bike to your house at least twice a week.
I picked up the phone when you called, day or night,
I helped you discreetly bury the evidence when you burnt an entire batch of cookies.
You took hours and hours of your life to teach me,
(Unsuccessfully) to knit; the best way to make pizza dough
You told me I was clever and important when I needed it most.
You told me you couldn’t wait to get out, leave home;
Even then, your parents’ world was suffocating you.
I felt so guilty leaving you behind to go to school;
We knew then that it was the end of an age
No more time and space for our youthful misrule.
We were both ready to turn a new page;
I thought we would remain the same, and I was a fool.
Over the years the world has made us different women,
Strong, as you knew we’d be, maybe even enough to
Square off against a cold and unforgiving future, more or less alone.
I don’t know why I stayed silent - perhaps I was afraid,
Yet ignorance always screams louder than truth.
These ugly words were placed in your mouth by another’s hand;
Last December, you told me I was unnatural and wrong.
(You didn’t know you did, but my heart hurts all the same.)
* * *
I dump my poetry on you at the beginning of every summer, it seems. Though, now that I wrote this one, it doesn't hurt anymore.