Tag: friendship

Keeper of Secrets.

I am the keeper of your secrets.

I am the one that knows why you laugh,

and why you cry.

I am the one that knows why they left you,

and why they said goodbye.

I am the one that knows what eats you up at night.

I am the one, like a torch, that carries the light.

I am the one that knows about your mother,

your brother,

that guy you like,

and why you haven’t finished school.

Like high school,

you no longer think I’m cool.

-S.

Close – October 2014.

He is 9.

I am 22.

Tonight, we laid intertwined in our parents’ bed. His legs over mine. My left arm under his head. The fan blowing cool air over our rumpled clothes clad bodies. ‘I Heard the Party’ by Gem Club was playing through the computer speakers.

Tears run down the sides of his face. He told me that he remembered this song. I’d played it weeks ago in my room and when he heard it for the first time, he cried.

It makes him sad. When I ask him why he is crying he tells me that he doesn’t want any one of us to die. That he wants us to always stay together.

I promise him that we won’t die.

I don’t want to crush his innocence tonight. I just want him to be able to feel whatever his heart feels while he listens to the song. I know that society will soon try to shut down this emotional side of him. But he has a very big heart. I hope that it always comes out on top.

The second time we play it, tears run down the sides of my face. Although we are not necessarily crying about the same things, we are one. We are feelers. We get deeply connected to things. Our happiest moments seem to be lined with a little bit of sadness.

And we don’t have to talk about it.

We just let the melody and the lyrics of the song do that for us.

Even though we’ve barely exchanged four sentences the entire day – in this moment, we are closer than we have ever been.

Both mourning something that has yet to come and that we cannot explain.

–S.

A Perfect Day – Eleven Years Ago.

I took my little brother out for hot dogs, ice cream, and some hardcore dance sessions during the car ride to retail therapy outlet mall.

Every time I think I know everything there is to know about that nine year-old boy, he surprises me.

He no longer eats his hot dogs plain. They are topped with ketchup and mayonnaise now.

His favorite song range from Lana Del Rey to Daft Punk (which he calls Drift Punk, and he tells me that EVEN our dad knows that’s their band name).

As I shift through the three radio stations I generally listen to, he directs me to stop at the ones that play the first song that catches his attention.

I lower the music to point out the airplane in the air, or the dog on the sidewalk with its owner, and he nods and smiles quickly, and turns the music back up.

He still misses our cats and dogs that have passed, and doesn’t quite understand where they go.

He closes his eyes and gets lost in the music.

He moves his head to the beats and pretends to know the lyrics as he lip sings.

Sometimes he actually knows the lyrics, and I look over in surprise, and he gets shy, lowers his eyelids, and stares away with a secret smile.

He gets the cone with vanilla ice cream, dipped in chocolate, with some crushed nuts.

He has an ice cream mustache the entire time, and while I am driving – I am frantically looking for something to wipe his mustache away. I forget in moments like this that he is nine. He can wipe his own mustache – if he really wants it gone. He is almost growing out of all these things.

He will eventually stop asking me to open his coke, or rip open the ketchup packet, or help him pass a level on a game. He will start doing these things independently.

Along with this – our dance sessions while riding in the car will become rarer.

It’ll start becoming embarrassing for him to do so and he will become old enough to stay home by himself and pick playing Halo 4 over going to Target.

I like to write about these emotions, these memories, because one day they will fade as well. I won’t remember them quite as vividly. I won’t remember that I was wearing my aqua button-up shirt with skulls and roses – that is way too big for me now because I’ve been losing weight. I won’t remember that E smelled like my dad’s aftershave because he says it holds for 72 hours. I won’t remember that we actually saw a woman who was crossing the street get hit by a car with our own eyes. I won’t remember that he didn’t get ice in his drink because he says his Dr. Pepper will start tasting like water. I won’t remember that he had a small red pimple on the front of his nose. I won’t remember that he wore his Champion sweatpants backwards for the second day in a row.

One day it won’t be hot dogs, ice cream, and dance. For E, it might be girlfriends, skateboards, and staying up late. For me, it’ll be a career, paying off student loans, and going to sleep early. I hope we always at least vaguely remember a time when life was simpler. Moments where we were infinite with David Guetta blasting in the backyard, ice cream mustaches, and soda highs.

–S.

Mama.

I searched and searched and searched for a friendship that would top them all. Someone to love me through my shortcomings, cheer me on during my accomplishments, and make me face the growth that I so desperately tried to avoid.

You were always there.

To hear about a friendship that ended. Or the butterflies that came with the start of a new one.

You never faltered. Your presence always one of the greatest influences in any move I made in my life.

It took me a long time to realize that you are my greatest friend.

I am lucky, honored, and humbled to share this life with you.

I have found you in every life before this one, and I will find you in every life after this one.

–S.

Royal.

Excerpt from a recent birthday card to my friend.

This day – today – is our BEST day.

Yesterday is gone. It’s never coming back.

Tomorrow isn’t promised.

So, we can plan, write, hope, dream, wish, and fantasize about the future, and that’s all good and well, but all any of us really have is the 24 hours in front of us. And for some of us who woke up today, we might not get to complete our full 24 hours.

Some people didn’t wake up today. Some people lost a loved one today. Somebody was raped today. Somebody miscarried a child today. Somebody found out their partner fell out of love with them today. Somebody’s son was shot today. Somebody’s daughter was kidnapped today. Somebody was handed divorce papers today. Somebody found out their husband was cheating on them today. Somebody found out their wife is pregnant by somebody else today.

So, we need to really start counting our blessings. What we DO have versus what we don’t.

We need to practice gratefulness daily.

It’s obviously easier to have an attitude of gratitude when you feel good about yourself, when you’re happier. But through times of sorrow, of grief, of pain and heartache, we have to maintain those things that we are grateful for.

I know I’ve said – I understand why someone would not want to be here anymore, but I DO want to be here.

Sometimes it gets so dark, and the light is hard to find. It feels as if it might never shine on you again, but we have to realize that the light comes from within. That we are the light. We are the answer.

You’re so beautiful. Don’t roll your eyes or laugh, hear me out here. People tried to break you down. They used you. They manipulated you. Your giving heart and your kind spirit, they took advantage of it. But you persevered anyway. You stayed beautiful inside. You never switched up. You never let the losers and the cheaters and the beaters and the abusers and the fraudulent souls change your light inside.

Did the flame flicker? Yes it did. Does it shine as brightly as it probably should? Not always. But does it shine? Despite all the odds stacked against you. Your spirit is unbreakable, that’s one of the main reasons you are so beautiful. Your resilience.

A TRUE Queen.

–S

Even though we didn’t make it, I still feel the same.

From 2014.

I know that we usually say I love you after we play-fight or someone brings up a topic that is still too fresh to joke about, but in every moment, serious or comical, I love you with my whole heart.

The beginning of this summer, at least for now, will be the last we will spend together.

As the days near your departure, I am full and I am hollow.

I am full of inside jokes, laughter, snippets in time, late night adventures, songs, embarrassing moments, proud moments, drives around the city, dances downtown, all-nighters pulled for assignments, the million little pieces that comprise our friendship.

I am hollow because I won’t be able to look at you across from the table at a restaurant and speak to you solely using eye contact. I am hollow because in your presence I am home. I have found shelter. I have found comfort. Life seems scarier to take on without you being a ten minute drive away.

Although we have only known each other for two years, I feel that our friendship has weathered the test of time in lives before and after this one.

I see us deep in the country at the age of five, collecting lightening bugs in mason jars and counting how long their light will last one Mississippi two. I see us at the age of eleven trying to drive an old beat-up truck and running it into a creek. I see us at the age of fifteen running away and deciding that we would live out of the bed of that same truck. I see us at the age of eighty-two at the nursing home ogling the ass of the tall, dark, and handsome nurse.

I am forever changed because of our time together. I hope in the future that we do get that apartment or house together that we always talked about, and even if fate wants us to always be separated by miles as our lives head in different directions, I want you to find comfort in the fact that I always carry your heart with me and when I feel the breeze against my face on a hot Texas day, or see the lights of the city late at night, I see two girls in a truck, laughing and speeding away.

I’ll be seeing you,

–S.

Missing Someone.

I don’t miss the lying,

but I miss the dying,

of laughter.

I don’t know what it is that you were after,

but it wasn’t me.

I wonder and wonder,

but I still can’t see,

there’s no rhyme or reason,

it just wasn’t meant to be.

–S.

To C.

You are Drake’s Take Care album.

You are driving out to the airport in the middle of the night to look at the lights.

You are belting out old school songs.

You are random dinner dates.

You are genuine laughter.

You are that old thang.

You are the perfect verse over a tight beat.

You are knowing what is going on with me without seeing me for weeks.

I owe you all of the colors in their richest and brightest hues for your artwork.

–S.