To the friends I knew more than a day

and less than a year:

 

If I were in a time loop 

It’d be at the art museum

where you and I pretended to be snobby enthusiasts.

Or the outbreak of laughter as we shook the stub of 

a handless Jesus at 2:00am in the cemetery.

I grieve your absence, trying to negotiate

between 100 miles and 5,000-

I loathe the word goodbye.

 

You could’ve been 

in my fourth grade yearbook.

You took the best parts of being a kid

and painted them on my skin.

You said it was just touch up.

Each person is a mural.

 

I have years characterized 

by the chapters you were present.

I grieve being no longer

in correspondence. 

 

Thank you for being my avatar. 

You are love incarnate.