Old Friend(s)

You taught me that a kiss could suffice (as in, exhilarate, fulfill, transport).

You taught me that getting to know someone could be something besides drills and razors, and that there is joy besides in keeping the various windows to the soul clean and unobstructed.

Through you I came to know that we do not choose whom we love, and that love, as a truth, is independent in its sphere. It may not coexist easily with other truths. But it should take precedence.

That needing someone is unforgivably awful and unfair.

That love existed means that love exists.

That close doesn't always mean proximate.

And as we stood in the doorways to unnameable places, (untouched by morning and untouched by noon), unseen even by God, I learned that someday the blood in our veins will be replaced by light.

And how badly, how monumentally I could screw something up.

And how I could bear anything, having born atmospheres of anguish because it was all I had left of you, and being slashed to ribbons by the thought of you was better than not thinking of you.

And how people cannot force themselves into another's story--even if every plot point indicates they belong there.

You taught me decorum.

Then you said, "Screw decorum." And it might have been the most important lesson. If only I'd learned it.

Only

"Everybody's lost," he said. "Or they're pretending they're not."

I wasn't consoled, but it was a pretty thought. Pretty without being quaint. Rarely can a sentence start with "Everybody" and finish without offence.

"Everyone is broken," came on the heals of "Everybody hurts." Years later these leave you saying, "Yeah, so?"
It gets worse the farther back you go. Everybody must get stoned. Everyone needs a hand to hold on to. Everybody needs somebody sometime.

They hollow you out and blow a warm, dull breeze through you.

Just be grateful it's only everyone.