“…yet, we’ve made it.”

Today is one of those days I long to say that to you.
To cackle over childhood memories, 
to glare in mock disdain and toss a subtle dig at the scars we left on each other 
— until we break into laughter, thick with nostalgia.

We drifted apart. 
Or is this just me taking refuge in a selfish interpretation?

You took part in a version of me that was barely polished. 
You took it and embraced it, and that felt like nothing else.
Friendships formed in adulthood aren’t quite the same.
We were so incomplete;
We relied on each other so deeply.

Do I dare say it?
That we were just different.
That we had different ways of preserving our friendship
beyond where our paths overlapped?

Because even if this is the truth,
I know our differences hurt you.
Because if this isn’t the truth,
I don’t know how to cope with having lost you.

Had I reckoned sooner that the most glorious form of love might be friendship,
would I have given you the credit you deserve
for showing me I am capable of loving so gloriously?

Did I really hurt you that much
that the fabric of our friendship
can never be stitched with that “yet,” 
the one hanging like a thread
at the edge of where our past ends?

It’s ironic, 
how the present redefines the past.
It’s more ironic,
how the more you love, the more you hurt.
And more ironic still is
that if you were here,
this is the very thought I would have texted you.