It all mattered.
It all held a level of significance.
It all molded you.
Not all of it remains.
Not all of it should be cultivated.
Not all of it carries forth with you.
Today I came face-to-face with my reality.
And, I fancied it.
We’d known each other before we knew ourselves.
As we sat side by side, we knew each other still.
She had been my childhood best friend.
Back before Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
Back when we exchanged weekly, if not daily, handwritten letters.
Letters I still have in my mother’s attic.
We separated not because of a disagreement but due to emotional distance created by unspoken truths.
Haunted by the same secret, we went our separate ways.
A secret that changed us without changing us.
Our secret is no longer secret.
Our mutual truth no longer remains hidden.
There has been too much living ever die again.
Few people have held her spot.
Mainly because they never got the shot.
Reminensencing, she brought it up, my adolescent reaction.
Her adolescent response.
Not to the truth but to the omission.
Even now, it lingers.
She says it severely impacted her formative years until her son appeared.
The reminder as we sat in the Central Jury room humbled me.
Our adolescent attempts at self-expression showed our ineptness.
Hurt turned into acting out.
And our acting out metamorphosis into unforeseen consequences.
We have seen each other a few times since then.
But little did we know the lives we then lived would soon come undone.
A twenty-nine-year friendship almost died because of the truth we could no longer hide.
No more secrets.
No more excuses.
No more reasons to remain reclusive.
All the misinterpretations are now clarified.
I am reminded why clarity is so important.
Fearful of a truth we both shared because we feared what the truth might shed.
It all mattered.
It all held a level of significance.
It all molded us.
Not all of it remains.
Not all of it should be cultivated.
Not all of it carries forth with us.
But we now know,
No more secrets.
No more excuses.
No more reasons to remain reclusive.
Two souls freed from the wait of excuses.
They erased all the hidden bruises.
About the Creator
EYHCS
Poet by birth. Writer by craft. Artist by nature. I write poems, prose, short stories, fiction, and realism works of art dissecting the human condition and the resilience of the human mind. Many of my pieces are metaphoric stanzas.
Reader insights
Outstanding
Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!
Top insights
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
On-point and relevant
Writing reflected the title & theme
Standing While Falling
Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche "He who wrestles long with monsters should beware lest he himself become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Man is not destroyed by suffering, but by the meaning he makes of it."
By LUCCIAN LAYTH6 days ago in Critique
Comments (1)
WOW! This is most definitely an intriguing story you've told us. One could imagine the physical and mental contortions being involved. Hopefully you are in a peaceful state of solitude now. If not, I appreciate the raw information you shared with us or myself altogether.