it’s a small reminder.

all it takes to make my eyes sting a bit, to grip my heart in a quicktight vise. a tiny mention of something we shared, something he introduced me to, and it’s impossible not to set off these little bells, impossible not to remember a different time.

i had a friend in the deepest sense i’d ever known that phrase, the deepest sense i ever may. we had a push pull tidal flow that was entirely too intermixed, probably codependent, maybe dangerous, but no one has ever been further under my skin. it was the only time i ever really thought about moving elsewhere, the only time i could see myself building a new life, because it was that important that we be close to each other, that torturous that 1200 miles separated us always. our bond was forged with the thickest links of iron you could ever picture and we swore it was for always.

i tell stories of how i have seen the first target store and how once i ate a whole chipotle burrito AND chips and guacamole because i was so hungry, about how once my plane had to circle and was going to get diverted and i was terrified because we had a concert to go to that night. i don’t tell stories of how i never felt more perfect or alive or right than when we were sitting in the grass outside of an amusement park waiting for the time of the afternoon when it would get cheaper to enter and watching the roller coaster go by above our heads. i don’t tell stories of how i know it was the moment my hand was taken while riding an escalator in an indian casino that changed things.

we broke each other’s hearts all of the time, in new and creative and different ways. the last time we spoke was almost three years ago. the last words we exchanged were screams. the weeks went by and i was bitter and by the time i wasn’t, it was too late. i put out my olive branch and all i heard back was silence. the line is dead, now.

bonds break and friendships die. some truths are hard, and ice cold. i don’t have to try not to speak of this, because i am always trying not to think of this. i know this is how you craft an identity, how you bury your raw bits beneath a layer so they are not exposed always.