To Friends Long Departed

Temo Cuauhtemoc Yanez

That was you on the road today,

I want to believe it was

A graceful and dancing doe

Lost on the freeway,

Lost, but with somewhere to go

I know that couldn’t have been you

Oh my dear Thorn

I owed you, better than I

Could give or do

Eleven years past, yet I mourn

Three long-forgotten years

Was all we knew

But everywhere I turn it’s you

Heralding these tears

Knowing you, altered the through-

line of my life, self, and being

Your own rosy radiance

Of a life lived honest to the core

Your lesson, pure, freeing

I fail entirely to condense

How knowing you so long ago-

At such a dark period-

two girls, learning their gender

Learning how to grow

Learning to live their truth

Oh my dear Thorn,

After ten years you won’t remember

But I could never forget

My inner beauty you remind me to adore

We’ll be ourselves yet

Some friends only stick around long enough to change your life and depart soon after. Some we learn from, and some we try to be like. Chance encounters reshape our lives constantly, and sometimes you are reminded of those people, sometimes you see them everywhere you look, and sometimes it is all you can see. I write to myself more than anything and I hope my pretty words can entertain someone else as well.