Tidbits and traces

Friendship in your 20s is a season in-between. Scattered through cities, both old and unseen-

half in love, half in heartbreak,

half in the jobs we take, and in the dreams we make,

Running through leases, through plans and through places,

nothing quite settles, it all shifts its faces.

You hold on to the ones you love, but they’re away.

You meet someone new, but don’t know what to say.

You’re just learning their rhythms, the phrases that they use,

the food they swear by, the first wordle they choose.

And so you drift softly, caught in the tide-

never quite anchored, still holding inside.

But I believe friends never really go.

I carry them with me, more than they know.

I see my high school best friend in a stranger's laugh,

my college roommate in blankets folded in half.

An old classmate’s cadence in a stranger’s tone,

a braid in my sister’s hair not my own.

They live in the smiles that brighten my days,

in garlic-laden pasta, in my everyday ways

in a racket held steady, a soft evening sky,

in boardgame-filled nights, in eggs fried just right.

in keys always missing, in shoes by the door,

 in hot-chocolate-fudge runs and leftovers galore.

in songs that return me to summers a while-

I carry my friends- 

their laughter in my smile.