Kiana

Remember your friends
how they laugh and smirk,
their tendency to write Love letters
on the back of grocery store receipts
when they’re put to spell
by Love’s spasm.

Remember your friends
your mirrors and lifelines,
how they shriek, thunderous,
their voices raging,
their voices ringing,
their voices with mouths
and something important to say;
how inclined they are
to turn into a storm,
destructive, uproarious,
in the throes of Love.

But also remember
how they pulled themselves out
like good seeds
scattered on bad ground;
how they won clashes of the heart
in the battlefields of men
when all the world ever did was tell them,
“You can’t fight; you’re just a sweetheart.”

Remember
how you held them,
distant with your eyes.
Remember
how they held you,
soft and close,
the closest you’ll ever get
to being mothered.

Remember your friends,
your life pals,
credos of your heart—
Love them, keep them in your veins. ♦