Verse I

I had a friend

When I was small

Who would always press the button of the doorbell

A particular way,

So that the chime always rang

The exact same, every time.

.

When she came over,

We'd hang upside down over the spine of the couch

Thinking of iMovie trailers to make

While my dad cooked us toasted sandwiches

And her dad mowed the lawn outside their house.

.

They lived across the road

Like a sister from barely 5 metres away

Except our front garden is large,

So there was more distance than we realised.

.

Now, we hardly talk

Not bothering with requests on Instagram or TikTok.

What would be the point when the coin dropped so suddenly

And we barely resisted being dragged in opposite directions?

.

Achilles, I'm sorry.

I didn't know how to deal with loss back then,

But now I just brush it aside with a knowledgeable sigh.

I've grown accustomed to my own head and

I guess

I can manage without people ahead or behind me

.

Yet, I will still gaze up at the ceiling

Where we'd try to reach our fingers on our tiptoes

And think about the frequency

Of friendships in my life

Whose ends were a surprise.

.

Your old house has been sold again;

We won't miss the people who had rented it out -

They tutted when I waved hello

Didn't want me to babysit their kids.

.

I would give anything to have a sleepover again;

Whisper our philosophies into spare daylight savings hours

A bunkbed of distance between us.

Now I read old diary entries,

And wish I could remember why we never made the effort

To know each other again.

.

As I sift through dusty birthday cards,

And memories appear on my phone

I compare our personalities

To the crafted stories we kept in envelopes

Filled with our favourite pens; stickers

Our hoarded jewels and matching signatures.

God, I miss it.

.

Remember the orange notebook

That got bulkier

Because we alternated writing scripts

Continuing over pages and pages and pages.

That was the best, I think.

It brought us together, despite everything.

And I wish you knew that I still keep it

Somewhere humble, marked with our names inside

And the details of every game of

Connect four,

Naughts and crosses; all

Those childhood guesses made

Without the need to know how far until the next stop.

We just played.

.

What is it about what I've lost,

That I desperately want back?

.

Despite the arrows fired

Gaps in golden armour;

The swiftness of fighting

And scars turned invisible,

Sore and deep, all over;

We grow.

Despite the asphodel fields

Bursting with that craving

For fallen and wandering souls

We can find each other;

Consistency and remembrance

Every kind of consolidation

For stories we kept tightly

Locked under our beds;

Maybe comforted by a soft toy; never sleeping

Always sneaking to the window to check I was there

Over the road, dreaming

Of another time where we didn't drift

And the density and weights of bridges

Couldn't jump over the rifts

We made to protect ourselves.

I wish, I wish, I wish

Upon the constellations of our matching star-signs

That the matchlight inside will return

As can find comfort in each others eyes;

Never truly becoming strangers

Friends again, just a little less known

But tugs of the tide keep my mind sore and

Weeping quietly

Past the spying eyes of dusk

Who always loved to gossip.

It throws a suggestion; cautious through the fog

Nearly tumbling down the steep decline

Of a neatly hidden cliff.

Maybe the distance wasn't our fault;

We could blame it on

Uncomfortable changes; the primal desire

To chase something that only really would taunt us

For imagining it wasn't too bad;

Romanticising photographs

And perfecting masks;

We dreamt, unapologetically

And now I write poetry, solemnly.

Because my mind is mean

I still get growing pains

For all the times I didn't appreciate

The person who was right in front of me.

I'm sorry again, Achilles.

~