There is a memory I keep circling back to
during hours of soft, smiling silences.
It is rather incomplete, just a piece really.
A single shard of shattered years I hold dear.

In this memory, I am on a hill just before it descends
holding an ice cream cone that once held a vanilla scoop.
My hand still sticky where the dessert dripped down
as I sought refuge in the shade of a lilac tree.
Late Spring's sun ceded to the blooming lilacs,
I could breathe in the perfumed air with an ease
of those with lungs that worked consistently.
And I could hear bees,
buzzing overhead, pollinating the light purple flowers,
going about their work at an unbothered pace,
like they too were soothed by the lilacs.
Content with what they already had
unhurried to gather more than they need.
I took my time munching on the wafer cone
unbothered like a bee.
And I thought to myself at the tender age of seven,

I'll remember this.

I just didn't realize at the time
how important that promise would be.

This memory is a shard, a piece,
it was jagged and hurt to squeeze.
Because it was brilliant simplicity
just before the concept of breaking touched me.
But the years I've cared for it
receiving cuts from how much I despaired
that it was gone, I'd never feel it again,
my care to return to this piece smoothed its edges.
I know now that there was no use clinging so tightly
leaving a mark in my hands as if it was proof
to be read in my palms that I had happiness.
Because I haven't lost it.

I will always enjoy the memory
of eating ice cream beneath my lilac tree
and smile at that simple piece.
I remembered it because I said I would.
I remember it now to experience it again.
It is a memory of happiness.
A promising peace.

I'm a good student and that's about it. I get good grades; I am a good kid. I'm smart and people say I'm going places. But I'm going nowhere, I'm trapped by expectations. I've made decisions based on safety, and not on who I want to be. Because I'm a student, I listen to authority. I trick myself into thinking I'm free and I get to decide my future. But I'm living on regimented time, saved and controlled by bells and teachers. I'm a good student, but I'm not good at life and my ambition has been dead for a long time. I'm just a student who knows how to pass. I'm a good student but I'm not made to last.

I stumbled across a letter from an old friend,
its contents were long and wordy but they had their end.
It was just her way of saying she appreciated our friendship.
A friendship unanchored, blew away with the wind
with paper sails that have only thinned.

Birthdays used to be a grand affair; a day to celebrate
but each year the wishes dwindle down so I reciprocate.
Radio meets silence while we're both aware of the days
until it becomes a memory of the song that no longer plays.
Too busy trying to navigate channels that changed.

Then an invitation to a graduation came to me one year
a wedge of uninterrupted distance bridged by a, "Dear."
I don't know if olive branches can hold my weighted heart
but I sent my response to expect me there
before I decided to not care.

When the day came you said, "I didn't think you would come!"
I kept quiet how I cried in my car a block from
your home. I hid my face in your arms and squeezed you tight
because the wedge between us was five-years wide.
"I said I would," is all I replied.

And we asked each other questions that friends don't ask.
What did you study? Where do you live? What do you do?
We joke around but do not laugh as hard as we used to.
My past brought to my present like a nostalgic gift.
A chance to heal over our ocean-wide rift.

And there were no known reasons! I can't turn back the clock!
I just drifted like a small boat barely tethered to its dock
until a storm came and everyone forgot to tie me down.
Or maybe it was on purpose, or maybe I couldn't secure me.
I was the fourth in a unit of three, send me out to sea.

But there is a positive to all of this turmoil
there is a reason the invitation made it to my door.
I rowed myself through the five-year waves back to shore
and tethered my boat and checked the knots times ten.
When friends become strangers we get to meet again.