Cast

You are one half of six
sugar-spun years of
friendship.


I remember [us
rolling in the snow] wanting
to call [us walking down
the road] you on the phone
and [us talking late at night] how
difficult it was to imagine [us eating,
laughing] your tone
through the texts.


I remember (vividly)
the feeling of [waiting for your
letter in the mail] bone-deep
sadness before [rushing to write back]
leaving for two weeks, holding [the care
packages we exchanged] on to
a small, doubtful hope
that [you visiting me, me visiting
you] when I returned it
would all be [finishing
the second scrapbook
for you, proud] over.


After those
last long months, it was hard to
remember you [weeping to my brother
on the phone] without [fighting
tears in my office at work] feeling
like [sobbing under the covers
at night] crying.


These days
it's still hard,
but I'm
remembering [learning]
how to [how to forgive]
forget and [you] let
go.





So!


I suppose there comes a time in every human's life where we must experience an earth-shattering sort of heartbreak. It's been a long healing process, and it still hurts to stretch certain muscles, but I feel like the cast is coming off and a weight is being taken off with it.


I haven't felt comfortable writing any poetry directly related to this heartbreak, partially because there's a sliver of possibility that it could eventually reach the person who broke my heart, but in retrospect it was also because I hadn't completely healed yet.
It just hit me how incredibly not-terrible I felt when I was describing the events to my mentor/friend a few days ago, and today I sat out in the sun and wrote this in one fell swoop.


There was a time when I thought that finally closing the book here would feel like an axe coming down on happy memories, but that's not what it feels like at all. It still hurts, I can't really lie about that, but it also feels like... I'm going to go back to comparing this to a cast. It feels like the time I broke my hand and had to wear a brace and a sling for a month; after a while I could go without the sling; then I graduated from the brace to a wrap; and finally, after what felt like forever, I could take the wrap off and just move. My hand still hurts sometimes, and there's still a scar, but it's not restricting me anymore.
That's what it feels like.




I'm fairly certain that the only people who see this are going to be people who know me & the story, so this entire essay is sort of short-lived, but!


I dedicate this poem to Meagan,
and to all the people who helped me back up just by being there along the way.


(as a side note- I'm hesitantly titling this "Cast", mostly because of the metaphor but also because of the verb- "to throw off; to part with".)