intelligence is wasted on
an obedience within a
geometric of a square...
no point keeping social
assurances; about time someone
got so drunk they'd recall
having a grandmother
in quotable citation -
to express the evaluations
of values theorised but never practised.

Hello friend, how have you been?
I don't think I'll ever see you again.
And I'm not sure if I ever want to.
Ask me again in a few years time.

I know it is because of you
That I am where I am.
It is because of you that I ever learned to swim.
It is because of you I learned how to survive.
But only because you left me there to die.

But you were young;
We both were young.
So I don't blame you.
I try not to.
And yet,
I still blame you a little bit.
Maybe a lot a bit.
I am ambivalent.

I am torn between
Thanking you for
What you did for me and
Hating you for
What you did to me.

But I have been thinking about you a lot lately.
Not of you, I guess.
I don't really remember you.
But of me.
I've been thinking of me
And what I use to be.

I have changed so much
Since you left;
Because you left.
Not in anyway you would notice.
I still act the same.
And look the same.
Still the socially awkward,
A little bit hefty,
Un-styled.
Perhaps I'm unaltered. Physically at least.
But I love myself.
And that makes all the difference.

But I am also more timid.
More sheepish and reluctant
To speak up, to say things, to try things.
And that's because you scared me.
And that fear, it scarred me.

I am not sure why you left.
I have an idea. A pretty good guess.
But I never asked and you never said.
And that question, the reason, it still hangs there
Between us.
Between all these miles.
Between all this time.

Did you know that this year,
This August,
It marks the sixth year?
We were only friends for five.
In the eleven years I've known you
I have been missing you,
Hating you,
You have been a somebody I use to know
Longer than you have ever been my friend.
And that seems significant.

But maybe my math is wrong.
Maybe I shouldn't stop counting in August.
Maybe I should stop in May.
Earlier? You tell me.
When did you really leave?
Either way, the fact remains.

And I don't hate you,
Not really.
Whoever you are now is not who you were.
And your decision,
Regardless of reason,
Left me for the better.

Eventually it did, at least,
But it took a long time.
And even now, even here,
Where and when I love myself,
I love my friends,
I love my life.
Even here, even now,
I still remember you.
I still bear the scars.
And I still wonder what was wrong with me.
Why don't I ever ask what was wrong with you?

I'll never ask you for the reason.
I'll never tell you how it felt.
Maybe you already know.
Maybe you don't.
I'll never ask even though it still haunts me,
Even though you're still haunting.
Because I know you couldn't tell me straight.
Just like I couldn't tell you straight.
I can't even tell myself straight.

There is no straight line between cause and effect;
No logical conclusion from all that has happened.
You are a reason I am where I am,
That I am who I am,
And I was who I was.
But not the only one.

It is a mash up of tragedies
And comedies
And dramas
And fantasies.
It's life.
And in the grand scheme, you won't matter.
What you did won't matter.

I'm sure it doesn't matter to you.
I don't think you think of me.
I don't think you have been counting the years,
The moments.
I don't think you've cried.
I don't think you have wondered what you might say
If we ever ran into each other.
I don't think you would know to apologize.

And if I never cross your mind,
If you don't think of me when making new friends,
When meeting new people,
Or when you read a new book
And really love it (even though it's stupid),
Or when you need someone to go to a midnight premier with you,
If you don't remember me,
If you don't remember you when we were us,
If you never wonder what if,
If you never cried about what happened,
Then I don't want your apology.
Because it would be empty.

Not because you don't mean it.
Maybe you would mean it.
Maybe you have had a lot of time to reflect.
Maybe you regret it.
Maybe you don't.
But if you haven't felt what I have felt,
If your life went on with no diversion,
Then any apology you might have to offer me
Would echo in the abyss of my what if,
While my forgiveness could never echo in yours.
Because you wouldn't have one.
And the lack of somewhere to put my forgiveness
Means the apology you gave to me never took up any space.
And it will just echo a few times,
Weakening as it bounces,
Until finally dying out
With no sign it was ever there.
Is that what I was to you? An echo?

And I am sure you don't imagine that the decision you made,
That decision to leave,
Could have ever had such a long lasting ripple.
That I would ever remember
Or fixate
Or cry about it
For this long.
I don't know why you are still on my mind.
I know that I want you gone.

I want to forget,
And to get over it.
For it to be something stupid
That happened when I was young.
Like losing a friend because we didn't have the same favorite color.
But six years later
I still remember.
It still hurts not knowing why.
And it is only within the last two years
That I no longer cry.

And, as much as I wish it didn't,
It matters.
As much as I wish I didn't,
I care.

And I have thought many times about what I would say
If I ever saw you standing there:
I would first try to hide,
But if you saw me I would smile.
Probably say hi.
And if you did nothing more than smile back,
If you didn't ask me how things were or how I've been,
I wouldn't ask you and just let you walk away.
The question. The reason.
Still hanging.

And if you did ask I would tell you,
But only the basic details,
Not any of the real meaning behind them.
And I would return with polite questions of my own
And we would part with kind words.
Just like nothing ever happened at all.
The question. The reason.
Still hanging.

And I would regret not doing
Or asking
Or saying anything more.
But I would also know that, if I could do it again,
I wouldn't change a thing.
There is nothing more I need
Or want
Or seek
From you.
I don't want the truth.
Not now.

Because I don't remember you.
You are just a face and a name I put to a change,
To a time in my life I cannot forget.
And who you are now
And who you were then,
It doesn't matter in my story.
Only what you did.

And this poem
Or this letter
Or whatever this has become,
It is not for you.
It is for me.
Because your memory persists
In all my rhymes and relationships.
You persist in all the books
And poems I read
And movies I see
And friends I meet.
I think of you and cry for you and write of you,
Even though I don't want to.
Because you represent my greatest fear:
Being rejected for all that I cannot change about myself.

You are a reason I am where I am,
That I am who I am now.
And I don't forgive you.
I don't think you need me to.
Though, I thank you anyhow.
But I hope I'll never see you again.
I hope you see me,
Happy and healthy and wonderful,
And regret, even just a little bit,
That you gave up any opportunity of knowing me,
Even just a little bit.

And if by some miracle,
Or disaster,
These words ever find you,
If you ever read this,
I am sure it will confuse you.
Because I am sure you do not remember as I do.
Or hurt as I do.
And that's why I hate you.
Or rather hate the idea of you.
Because you just walked away and left me to deal with the consequences.
My world was upended.
And six years later I am not okay.
What you did was not okay.

And I don't know how to end this.
I'm not sure if I have more to say.
Or if I have said too much.
Or if what I said is all meaningless anyway.
I don't wish you well,
But I don't wish you ill.
And though I still think about you
It is not really you I am thinking about.
You are a stranger now.
You have been for a long time.
And I feel for you just as I feel for any random stranger,
Perhaps even less,
Because I actively try to feel nothing at all.

So I'll say to you now what you never said.
Not sure why, but
There was an entire conversation we never had,
Though I know how it would have ended,
What I would have said if given the chance:
Goodbye.

A car full of brothers.
Riding the roads.
Taking our time to arrive at our destination...
Without the need to measure and beat time...
We are the winning Brave Tortoise racing the Hurrying Hare.
Breaking only to enjoy the shots...Captured forever on film.
Nice memories frozen in our photo's views like blocks of ice
in our mixed drinks with added lime.
Cheers with the touch of each other's glasses
we enjoy a great buzz.
We race and out run the black and white's
laughing at the "Fuzz."
Laughs and monuments.
Getting car sick on a long ride.
Laughing as we rough house in a hotel room...
Just the right amount of fun to enjoy such a trip in stride.
Returning home. Still smiling from the much needed relaxation..
With a hangover and a sober look at each other...
We are brothers plotting another bunch of sweet antics
on our next "Adventurex On Vacation."

Boredom comes, consumes your mind.
You slowly watch the passing time.
You wonder if it’ll ever end,
Even though it just began.

I’d always less than half a sense;
To my detriment, often doubling-down,
Ordering the same sorts of poison –
Warm beer, cold women, back alley-ed eyes
And other late night snacks simmered atop the oil
Salvaged the streets come previously devoured.
Bottled and poured, again and consecutively through me,
An anomaly now evolves average;
Cured only an alchemy wrought, "baijiu," (rice wine),
Crowd summed solitude’s paradox and hazy Chinese moons.

So when in Rome, do as the Romans do
And die as Romans die;
A slighter justification for what’d later trumpet –
Salivation’s sip, salvation’s second,
A tickle atop tongue, sour in stomach
And cancerous come the lesser years,
Deep, nether and beyond the once upon a time barren,
So I plead for seconds and corral but only
Three revelations in the expanses exhumed:

One – I want to die. Two – Tastes beat the years.
And three – The world’s a wonderful meal;
Home to another and common denominator,
The shared variable, viable and pliable,
Our simple ingestion, communal,
So that I may venture a path paved prior
And yet parallel something nearly precious – truly alive.
Either way, it’d satiated but one achy throb
And prevented me from washing the dishes;
A fair trade for someone who’d always assumed early ends.

Pencil scratching words out
Silence
The sound of paper and lead connecting
Rustling
Frustration, not meaning what you write
Eraser comes out
The crumbler of words
Rubs across the unwanted
And now unsaid
Words that don’t let you speak your mind
Wipe the crumbled words away
Let them fly off the table
Land on the ground
Begin an adventure
That only crumbled words can
Rolling out into
Toiaywahds
Shifting
Changing
Fitting
Into what it means
What do I say
The crumbled words representing
Things you would never dare admit
imssoiuy
liveoouy
Unscrambling
Rearranging
Letting themselves free
I miss you
I love you
Brushing those haunting
Impacting, changing words away
Keeping yourself
Alone
Safe
lonely