Buddy
Sometimes I wonder
If you ever remember me
Because your face is blurry in my mind’s eye
Ten years seems so long ago…

When we played pretend
We made
the best goddamn mud pies
and stick and stone dirt soup
(Gordon Ramsay who?)

Or when we thought
we were better fighters
than the soldiers of WWII
in our make-believe swashbuckling adventures

Gray days were just never dull
With the kind of clown you were
like when you broke your arm
and got up from the ground
laughed the whole way to the nurse

we used to play at your house
right next to Grandma’s
broke your dad’s whiskey bottles one day
he was really cross
you were grounded for a week
and it felt so lonely
Like when a moth without its candle

and this same house
you scribbled your name on the bedroom wall with a permanent marker;
“Eric and Derrick are brothers
this is their room :)”
in your doctor-esque handwriting
and this same house
is where i live now
your family left it to ours
and when i see those words
I can’t help but think to myself
where in the world would you be right now
and i go back to December
when you moved out with all your stuff
and i cried the whole week
while playing back pictures of you and i
running up and down the hallway
thinking about
our suburban dreams and adventures
that maybe we might have them one day
even if we reunite at 80 years old.

Inspired by dorothea, seven & Back to December by Taylor Swift.