The light didn’t seem
to touch you,
as if you cloaked yourself
in vestments
of your own melancholy.
We were young,
and the world was hostile,
breeding hostility in us.
We would learn
how to be fragile.
Some of us,
cracked and dented vessels.
Others of us
shattered completely,
only to use our shards
as weapons in the dark.
We didn’t know
how dark it would get.
I followed you,
as much as I could.
Maybe I maintained
more than a causal
level of guilt,
for your situation.
Maybe I cared
more than I should,
but I have always allowed
my heart
a certain fenceless freedom.
I rooted for you.
Celebrated your victories,
mourned your defeats,
and when you finally
dropped off the map,
I still wondered after you.
Friendships are like that.
Have you ever tried
to track a shooting star
across the sky,
only to lose it
in the vast fields
of the cosmos?
There is a certain joy
when your eye picks it up again,
right before
it disappears over the horizon,
or burns up in orbit.
HG – 2022
