A Ballad of Healing and Hoping and Breaking Again

Our paths collided

In the Summer of 2019

When you were

Reading a book

And I was thinking

You looked a little

Like my past self

(Somebody craving

The kind of love they gave)

❀

Three seasons passed

With polite greetings and

Friendly smiles and a

Fleeting moment where

I wondered what it would

Be like to be best friends with you

❀

When the days grew

Longer again and

The lockers and timetables

Changed like the next

Chapter in a novel

Four of us came together

Like stars forming

A constellation

Like threads forming

A friendship bracelet

❀

In the Autumn

We shared our

Saddest stories

Like they were

Fallen leaves

Pointing out to each other

The lines and patterns

We’d missed

Making sure we

Saw the whole picture

Before we folded them up

Brushing them beneath the dirt

❀

In Winter, we were reminded

That not everybody stays

As one thread of the bracelet

Tore from the rest

One star falling from the sky

Leaving the rest to wish

Not all stories had to

End with less light

❀

In Spring, we watched

The flowers bloom and

Told each other that

They’d never wilt because

That’s what we wanted

To believe ourselves

❀

By Summer, it was just

The two of us (you and me)

Growing around each other

Like desperate, dying

Tree trunks

Reaching for the sun

Roots entwined

You told me I was

Your best friend and

I swear I tried not to hope

Because where had that

Ever gotten me?

But you had gotten me there

And not all stories have to

End in darkness, right?

❀

Autumn’s leaves fell

And I wished on

Every shooting star

That our friendship

Wouldn’t end up like them

Rotting in the ground

Once beautiful and

One day forgotten

❀

Winter was steaming popcorn

Sharing hopes and fears

Like your mother’s cookies

Sleepovers at every chance

And forgetting the word

‘No’ existed because

Every suggestion elicited

An excited ‘of course!’

❀

That year’s Spring was

My rock bottom

But you stayed down there

With me, holding me while

I burned and burned and

Wished to be anywhere else

(Even nowhere)

And I knew then

That was what friendship

Was supposed to be like

That was what I’d waited for

That was forever

❀

The sun arrived with Summer

New beginnings and

Cages left behind

And you, where you always were

(By my side, laughing with me)

❀

By Autumn, more people

Had come and gone

More stars falling

Like deflated balloons

You told me you were

Terrified that one day I’d leave

And I fervently promised you

That even when the sun had faded

And the world had ended

I’d still stay by you

And my subconscious

Whispered to me

You’ll stay, even if

She breaks you

(But I knew you never would)

❀

In Winter we ate ice-cream

In the freezing breeze

Before running to the car

And turning the temperature

To the thick red line

You knew my favourite flavour

(Cake batter and mini marshmallows)

Like I knew your heart

(Soft and full of love)

❀

But darkness looks for

A way in, in any season

And water will find cracks

In any boat, no matter

Who is rowing or how much

They care about who is

Across from them

❀

And so, Spring uncovered

All our little cuts and gashes

As if someone had turned up

The sharpness in a photo

Spring grew like a wall between us

Spring had me screaming and

Ripping out my hair

One day we were both

Fighting to get through the wall

Fighting to get back

To each other

And the next

I couldn’t see

Anyone on the other side

I couldn’t hear your heart beating

Like I used to be able to

❀

By Summer you were gone

❀

Out of sight, consuming my mind

A hole in my life that

Sucked me in like sinking sand

Vomiting me up in rock bottom

(At the place where you’d

Once stayed by me)

Leaving me to remember

The promises I’d kept and

The ones you’d broken

The times I’d hopelessly hoped

And the moments I’d chosen to believe

Not every story ends in darkness

Now my sun has faded

My world ended and

I never left but

All it takes is one

To walk away

❀

In Autumn you didn’t come back

❀

In Winter I finally realised

You weren’t going to

❀❀❀❀❀

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