Poetry

Just something to toss into the void after i get a heart react from my mom

[poemsformyfriends]

So many nights I dreamt of starting over

so many days built around escape

So many afternoons burning

inside

and out

moving

without going anywhere

imagining a calm

before being born

into a twenty-three-year storm

wanting it

fearing it

knowing only the storm

---

So many nights I ran

So many days I ended up back home

So many afternoons hollowing

inside

and out

picking things up

setting them down

picking them up again

rearranging the small artifacts of myself

like order might mean repair

trusting some cheap feng shui

to fix what I wouldn’t look at

broken shelves

buckling

suitcases stacked in my chest

my heart refusing

to open even one

---

Lately

it hasn’t been nights

days

afternoons like that

Now my nights look backward

at days that were soft

at finding myself home

and realizing

how much it matters

I thought I was moving forward

but I was staring in the opposite direction

I don’t need to escape anymore

I spend my afternoons

rekindling

inside

and out

[poemsformyfriends]

Every fleeting moment,

a catch of the eye,

a second of synchronicity.

Every laugh, identically timed.

A lyric, mutually sung.

A moment shared in time.

It makes me question the structure of love,

the meaning of adoration.

It makes me realize my undeveloped brain

can write a lengthy, overdeveloped answer.

Disregarding the structure of poetry

to process your questions of the world,

I wonder why we cannot also disregard

the seemingly meaningless bounds of love.

To love is the most beautiful thing a human can do:

to allow yourself to be authentic,

to be whole with another human being.

What is knowing a person?

Is it knowing how to make them laugh,

knowing what eats at them inside,

what will warm them after the coldest day,

knowing their guilty pleasures?

How do we love them?

Do we make them laugh in every way we can,

searching for that little smirk

and doing anything in our power to see it again-

to find that moment of connection,

that spark?

Do we share the burden of their hunger,

fight for the change they want to see,

better ourselves and the world,

fueling the fire inside another

with all the love we can give?

Do we then use the heat of their fire to keep us warm,

and as they fuel us, return the energy

with our own embrace-

using that warmth to dry ourselves

from storms we would walk through

time and time again

if it meant sharing that moment once more?

Loving them by indulging in their simple pleasures.

Enjoying every smile drawn out

by the jokes of reality television.

Adoring the look of wonder

when staring into a bin of thrift-store junk.

Sharing the same small vices

as a symptom of a deeper addiction:

human connection.

I love my friends.

I want nothing more than to tend to their sparks

until we can set the world on fire, fingers interlaced.

I want the touch of their hands to warm my body

before I am engulfed in the flames.

I want the heat of our connection

to melt our hearts together

and blur the lines of our deepest desires.

[poemsformyfriends]

I like the highway.

I like the moment right before merging onto 279,

that small held breath where the lane opens

before the tubes.

I like my trips in the Chrysler you taught me to drive

when I was eighteen-

my hands too tight on the wheel,

your voice steady, unbothered,

trusting me before I trusted myself.

I like playing 99.7—Wish—in that Chrysler.

the static- soft, sentimental, always almost too much.

You kept the volume low

so we could “chat abaht life and what’s goin ahn,”

your vowels rounding the air,

your stories meandering their way down the road with us.

I ended up keeping the volume low.

I could turn it up now,

but I like pretending you’re still beside me,

telling me how she changed your life,

never noticing you were quietly

changing mine.

I don’t know how to write about you. I never have.

I’ve tried hundreds of metaphors-

constellations, anchor points, north stars-

all of them wrong,

all of them too small

for the way you rearranged how I see the world.

I don’t know how to write about her. I never have.

Trying to capture the authentic beauty

of our friendship feels like pressing a wild thing

into a frame-

like naming it might drain its warmth.

Ironic, I know.

I don’t know how to write about love. I never have.

But when I try,

I always think of the two of you first.

I think about growing up,

counting down the days

until I would never come back to my family again-

marking escape like a holiday.

I think about when that stopped.

I think about the kitchen island,

the one with entirely too many light switches,

each click another conversation,

another reason to stay a little longer.

What am I saying?

I know how to write about you. I always have.

I’ve just been afraid to say

that you offered me a part-time job

and handed me an understanding of human connection

so gentle and so real

it has kept me alive

on more than one difficult night.

I know how to write about her. I always have.

I could talk for hours

about the way she reads me like a book-

skipping ahead, finding the margins—

but we’d run out of time

before I could explain the warmth

of her hand holding mine

as she tells me another story about you.

I know how to write about love.

I haven’t always.

Sometimes we get to form the bonds that shape us

in weird little situations, huh?

I pull into your house.

The driveway remembers me.

I hang up your key.

The quiet settles in.

No one is home.

[poemsformyfriends]

I don’t have the strength of a thousand men.
No anthem swells when I walk into a room.
No heroic chorus rises behind me.

My strength is smaller.
Closer to the bone.
And somehow more frightening.

I have the strength of one me.
No orchestra-
just my heart beating too fast in my throat
when I choose to stay open.

It’s not heroic.
It’s reckless.

My strength is loving at full depth
and accepting that I will be hurt
at that exact depth-
again.
And again.

My strength is how quickly I spiral.
How I can sit down for a moment
and already feel myself tightening,
thread pulled too hard,
wrapped so tight I forget how to breathe.

And still-
I am one piece.

Frayed.
Raw at the seams.
But not broken into fragments.

One piece that will unravel on purpose
even when it means exposing wounds
in every color of healing-
pink and tender,
dark and closing,
barely scabbed.

They have to breathe.
That’s the only way they become strong again.

To love like this isn’t devotion.
It’s gratitude.
It’s saying thank you
for the chance to feel something that big
even if it burns me.

The strength of one me can feel suffocating.
It fills rooms.
It overwhelms people.
It overwhelms me.

But it moves.
It floods.
It dries up.
It leaves when it’s time.
It stays when it matters.

Sometimes the strongest parts of you
are the parts you’re ashamed of

———
the desperate,
the obsessive,
the too-much parts.

The parts that set themselves on fire
just to stay warm.

And strength is not putting the fire out.

It’s peeling back another layer of skin
and standing there,
breathing through the heat,
refusing to disappear.

[poemsformyfriends]

It is ridiculous

that I am a professional friend.

I am told

I am skilled at my job.

Tasks include-

Memorizing your second

and third favorite colors

in case of emergency-

in case the blue rag is dirty

and only green will do,

in case the world is already too loud

and the wrong shade tips it over.

Repeating a movie title

with blockbuster-level enthusiasm

after a week that has wrung you out-

“Madagascar 3! Europe’s Most Wanted!”

For the fourth time.

And adoring it.

Rooting through my closet

to find something pink for UNO night-

9 a.m. sharp-

because theme matters,

and showing up matters,

and losing in pink

is better than winning alone.

Okay.

That one isn’t exactly

in the job description-

more like avoiding

social suicide.

I am told

I am skilled at my job.

Workflow includes-

Sitting on the bench with B

at 8:45 a.m.,

the air still sharp,

as he cries about something

he’s held in for days,

thinking it’s small.

Listening like it isn’t.

High-fiving B

when the napkin arcs

in a perfect paper parabola

into the trash can-

both of us celebrating

like confetti should fall from the ceiling.

Owing B five dollars

because I underestimate

how serious he is about bets.

Going bowling.

Losing terribly.

Cheering anyway.

Learning the difference

between overstimulated

and overwhelmed.

Between quiet

and shut down.

Between “I’m fine”

and “It’s fine.”

That is barely scratching the surface

of how deeply

I get to know B.

I am told

I am skilled at my job.

I don’t care much

for the accolades-

not from coworkers

who call it “meaningful work,”

not from friends

who say, “I could never do that,”

not even from family

who are proud in the way

people are proud of something

they don’t fully understand.

It isn’t hard

to be good at loving someone

with your entire heart

when loving them

is the point.

Not everyone will understand that.

The praise that keeps me going

doesn’t arrive in performance reviews.

It arrives folded in crayon-

in my first, second,

and third favorite colors.

A get-well card

after one day away-

as if my absence left

an outline.

A last-minute drop-in to my classroom

just to wave,

just to make sure

I am still there.

And I know he says it to everyone.

I know that.

But still-

“You are my heart.”

He presses each word out carefully,

like something fragile.

It never loses its weight.

For that,

I am the richest

and the poorest

human alive.

Rich in trust.

Rich in inside jokes.

Rich in the way someone looks for me

in every room.

Poor in the way the world counts.

Poor in the way budgets are written.

Poor in the way compassion

is applauded

but not funded.

So pay direct support professionals more.

We are not just caregivers.

We are historians of favorite colors.

Witnesses to 8:45 a.m. tears.

Champions of napkin shots.

Keepers of five-dollar debts.

Professional friends.

We pour every drop of our souls

into work that asks for everything

and pays in gratitude.

And gratitude is beautiful-

but it does not cover rent.

We are needed.

And friendship-

real, relentless, whole-hearted friendship-

is not ridiculous.

It is essential.