There was a time when I could have said
It feels like we’ve known each other forever.
Now, I might say
It feels like we’ve never met.
Friendships
That feel like dreams—
Did we really
Once flop over in the yard, sitting cross-legged, sharing different shades of pink nail polish?
Was it real when we
Played hide and seek and hid in strangers’ back yards, feeling clever and triumphant and mischievous and hoping we weren’t still waiting to be found when the sun went down?
Can you remember when we
Argued over who got to be the pink Power Ranger?
Isn’t it funny how we
Wrote notes to each other in sparkly gold ink and folded them into cute little origami shapes?
Wasn’t it weird when most of our conversations
Were about boys and kissing and wanting to be all grown up?
Wasn’t it strange when we
Started getting into trouble?—not the kind of trouble where our parents grounded us, but when the police caught us and the judge sentenced us?
Wasn’t it surprising
When we realized they were all just memories, buried, fading, the way dreams begin to fade upon waking?
Isn’t it sad how we
Share these memories but
It feels like we’ve never met?