Friends, For That One Night
Her name was Faye
It means, I think,
Faerie.
In some language. Some dialect
Russian, I think.
When I first approached her
It was with, “doesn’t your name mean faerie?”
Her face exploded into fireworks—a shower of stars—as she told me,
“Yes! It means faerie! In Russian”,
I think she said.
She went on to telling me that how
I am the first person she’s ever met
Who knows this.
She said she knows me.
That how in every class, she’d see me
Responding to the teacher, always in glee
Never holding back my personality.
Like the brightest star in the sky
She was always there. While I was always me.
I’d play with the thought that
Maybe
Something for us was meant to be.
Each time she smiles was an ocean reflecting the day’s light
Her specs magnetized her eyes to becoming two moons.
Glancing over your spirit. Waiting. Observing.
I wanted to make her happy
But the problem is, she was already happy.
Whether because of him, external of him
Just around me.
But I guess that’s not really a problem?
We didn’t go through much together
But what we had held so much.
We went through so much, in one moment.
I’m talking: me cleaning up her vomit with my bare hands
Receiving drunk texts late in the night
When her friends abandoned her in the bar,
Lowering the bar.
Sitting in a library room, talking her through it
Until she let it all out
“Here, take my jacket.”
“It’s cold outside”
“You’re in no shape to drive”
“Spend the night”
Arms around my shoulders. Supporting her.
As we take the long walk, stumbling, to my on-campus apartment.
“You can take the bed,
I’ll sleep on the floor”
Wait what?! No!!
Are you sure?...
At one point in the night,
She told me I was the perfect friend.
The bestest friend
That how no quality of friendship surpasses what I had to offer
I wonder if she’s already forgotten me.
I wonder if she knows
Her existence has already been deleted
From my phone.
That because the last few times I had texted her,
The friendship wasn’t really there, anymore.
That maybe what we had didn’t want to overstay its welcome
So it left.
Someone said, in the Kingkiller Chronicle,
We know how the story will end.
It’s just the process. The path there. That keeps us engaged.
I knew nothing was going to come out of us.
I do a great job of burying myself in the moment,
But if I had taken my head out
Look to see what’s ahead—
I knew it wasn’t us.
My star shined bright in her universe, for that one night.
When she was needing someone to reach out to
So she messaged the last person she had texted—
Which I’m sure wasn’t me
But
In that one night, I was the brightest star in the sky.
So, of course, the messages followed the path to me.
A whole friendship
With not too many in-depth connections
No substantial intimacy
Built for that one moment. That one night.
I wonder if she still remembers
I wonder if the story is being told, in places only the wind knows.
If the establishment we had built. For only that one night.
Has been visited by her.
Since we’d continued down our separate paths.
