It hurts me to remember how
she and her laughter made you smile.
I wince even now, watching you in my head,
replaying the moment you used your eyes to speak
with her in a way I thought reserved for me.

Friendship has boundaries:
boundaries once overstepped are hard to renew.
I crossed the river
and tried to cross back for both our sakes.
I maintain success. I must. For us.

But thinking how she came so close,
how if she’d chosen you instead,
how if she’d danced you to the end,
laughing all the way,
My constantly crossing rivers heart cringes.

It’s very true.
While walking in the street,
jealousy is often mistaken for romance.
When the green monster strikes,
friends seem guilty of unfriendly desire.
Fallaciously.

Jealousy judges not.
At least not that way.
A jealous someone is not (might not be) in love,
but is (most always)
wanting to be someone’s only Something.
And that Something could be anything:
French Tutor, Designated Driver,
Babysitter, Secret Keeper.

So when we’re walking in the street,
and you ask me why I’m jealous,
you answer your own question saying I’m in love.
When the green monster strikes,
you accuse me of the passionate crime.

My friend, all I want is not you.
I just want to be your only Something.

I don’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday
I walked out my door forgetting why as I locked it,
my shoelaces didn’t tie themselves today like they usually do.
Also, I called my friend “Mommy.”

But after certain ungodly hours spent between pages:
I can spell the names of all those ancient Greek poets
and recite the tragic tale of Dido, the Carthagian queen.
If asked, I might outline the life cycle of a fern and
tell those (few) who want to listen exactly how
cells communicate-cascading signals down in a waterfall.
I know the ratio in which certain atoms combine,
in a dance of mutual benefit and energy.

Yet my keys, sitting right there, in front of me,
on the desk where they landed five minutes ago,
play a hiding game as elusive as that thought
which forgotten, tugs at my mind, trying to tell me
its name, trying to tell me the terrible truth that
I didn’t brush my teeth this morning.

Memorizing makes an absent mind.

When I look at a picture of me,  
I don’t really remember the person in the picture.
Who she was and how she saw the world.
I can educate my guesses.
But they are guesses only,
based on what I don’t really remember to be true.
Because I am not who I was (any number) of (anything) ago.
One, two, three, four:
years, months, weeks, days, hours, seconds,
ice cream cones eaten, smiles given, frisbees thrown, breaths taken.
I am the sum of all my moments,
all the years and months and ice cream cones and breaths.  
Every moment culminates in me.
And so when I look at a picture of me,
I see a piece of the person standing with a picture in her hand.
I see a moment of the baby, girl, woman who’s
loving and living and breathing
and adding her moments up.
I may not really remember her, but
I know she is still real.

Here's how I think of us, and maybe this will help.
We wake up.
Same house, separate bedrooms.
We stagger down to breakfast.
I get there first, because I want to make sure there's
enough milk for both of us. If there wasn't,
I'd give it to you and eat an apple.
Fortunately, there is, and we eat our
Cheerios while blinking dreams out of our eyes.
We look at each other and sigh, saying
without words that this is life and we're still sleepy.
After breakfast, we go upstairs.
Same house, separate bathrooms.
We get ready for the day ahead,
You're done first, because you’re in a hurry,
like always , and you think about not waiting for me.
Yet, you wait and soon I'm done and
we stand in front of our door.
We look at each other and sigh, saying
without words that this is life, and it's time to face it.
We say that today is today.
Tomorrow will be tomorrow.
And the next day the next day.
And each morning, we'll wake up and
lose our minds again.
But it's fine in the end.
That's how I think of us.

I used to be
someone who
never told anyone
anything she wanted
I kept it all inside, and so
I felt, I breathed, I lived my life.
That was enough and that was all.
Now that I'm older, wiser and stupider,
I name them. I claim them, ashamedly and
unashamedly. And I don't think I ask too much.
So listen, please. with your heart and consider:
to be important as others are important,
to be greeted with a hug and smiles,
to be missed when I'm not here,
to be listened to and heard,
to be part of a whole,
to be respected,
to be loved,
to be real,
To be.