My Childhood Best Friend

At eight years old

I learned that people leave

And never return back

Until the day you don’t miss them anymore

When I was in second grade

I saw him for the first time

As I walked into the room of

What felt like darkness

I sat down in the chair

That felt like it was made from

Thornes

As I picked up the phone to talk to him

On the other side

I was disappointed

In my childhood best friend

As he said his first words

I smiled back and told him

Everything that he missed out on

On the days he was unavailable

As my family and I walked out

My dad started to cry

And that was the first time

I had seen my dad cry

When I was in fourth grade

I saw him again

I realized that I missed him so much

As I wrapped my arms around him to give him a hug

As I smiled next to him to get a picture

As I sat in the blank white room

Laughing

And playing games

At the time of that moment

And now

I expressed all my feelings to myself

Feeling lonely

Feeling Empty

And sad all the time

I felt like I didn’t have people there for me

And I captured all of my problems

Like a snowglobe captures the water and fake snow
I couldn’t keep it to myself

I saw him again after four years

As I walked into the room

Filled with doors

I looked through the window

And saw his face

At first I was disappointed in him

I looked down at my feet and then at my hands

Anxious

I looked up at the ceiling

Looking back at him

Not even listening to my parents

Asking me questions

As I opened the door to the hallway

I stopped making eye contact

The police officer opened the door

The room was filled with inmates

kids

parents

and wives

I sat down slowly and looked over to where

He was walking in at

As he walked in

He said some words

But I was still disappointed in him

I told him about my life that he missed out on

As I’m growing up without my childhood best friend

That I made so many memories with

I realized that people are going to come and go

And our memories are going to be erased

Like an error on an assignment

All the memories were erased because

I lost my childhood best friend