Because I knew her young
and she died young,
I find her all the time,
just as she was back then
when I go searching
for some meaning in
the story of my past.
She was not a girlfriend
nor was she a secret crush:
she was a friend,
and friends, sometimes
make bigger impacts on us than
a mere listing of circumstance
might indicate.
If I could catalog
every interaction we ever had,
I’m not sure it would be more
than forty —
I knew her sister better, who
was closer to my age —
but I remember so many of the conversations,
remember what we talked about,
how it felt to talk about those things:
it all adds up to a lot more
than our relationship would seem
to justify, under normal circumstances.
Who out there has friends like this?
There are no ‘normal circumstances’,
there’s just life as it is;
weird, wonderful, tragic, and magical.
She was in her twenties when she died,
and that was three decades ago,
but she continues on in my thoughts,
because she was amazing and wondrous,
and because both the joy and sorrow of her spirit
still live, inside me
as she does
