A letter to an old friend.
Category: Poems
Current mood:  curious

I'm in Louisiana visiting for the first time since I left here.

It feels unreal. I feel like a new person but I'm not.

And I'm surrounded by the ruins of what used

To be. 

I'm staying in the same ole apartment

We always used to visit, 

My grandma from My little brother's side. 

Everything is the same.

The floorboards, where they creak-

The same spot. 

It's like, when I step on them, I feel my soul 

Creak too

Where the past lays slumbering-

Yet awake as ever, tumbling over familiar 

Territory, relighting a painful yet nostalgic 

Fuse. 

Arson of the heart. 

Horrible memories swirling in the old cupboards-

Drinking them down in plastic Mardi Gras cups,

Marked 2015.

Parts of me, the more naive, unrefined remnants 

Of my impish soul, 

Giggling and dancing down the apartment steps.

The grieving of a childhood lost, 

All dancing in a disorienting storm.

I posted up, that I had returned-

Subtly, with a small tag.

No grand entrance like I had done

In your life when we were young.

Part of my heart hoped you'd see, 

My old friend, through thick and thin-

Who's blood I spilled, accidentally.

Yet we both drank it up, giggling. 

And to make it fair, I flooded the floor

With mine.

It was all red, but we were burning blue then.

Maybe that was bad. Was it? 

I let you decide.

And you did. You saw.

And i wish not that you think of me 

If it brings pain to you anywhere-

And I think it does.

You went dark on location, I noticed.

After I made my arrival.

I did not reach out. I let you decide.

And you did. 

And I'm sorry for crawling into your soul

Like I did when we were young

And eating from the inside like you did

Mine. 

I cherish the bite marks you left in my heart 

And soul. I clean them. I talk to them.

I think the ones I left on you, are rotted. 

You let them fester and that's okay.

I'm infinitely sorry.

I would tell you, but I won't force you to see

Nor hear me.

You have enough. You decided so.

And I trust you. 

As I always have, and it's been several years.

Maybe in another life, 

We'll get it right.