I’ve had friends disappear, reappear, or just never return.
But I’ve got this one friend who I can never let leave. No matter what.

There was a gardener with a needle-thin blowgun,
miles outside my second-story window
that framed flashes of my skin and shape.
Inside my bedroom—my work space, my cubicle—my bed stood unmade.
Offended, I tangled myself in a bedsheet and waved sardonically to the gardener, who, with eyes that burned with kill,
blew.
Missed. “HAH!”
Blew.
Missed. The window pane splits.
Blew again, finally, so that the poison thorn slipped miraculously through a tight slivered opening of the window pane,
striking my spine.
Paralysis.

You had grown since I last saw you
in ways other than length around.
You lived with bad strangers and
your new spawn, the purest.
They tried to break your baby,
the one you didn’t want,
so we scooped him up
and brought him in for you.

By the thread of a balloon
In a sleepy, drunken stupor
I blew lowly over small mountains
drizzled with warm snow, in the
Western light—
different than any other kind.
Had I come for you, or my roaming pregnant sister?
In the wake of a growing darkness
I entered the belly of a blackened forest
still gripping with the strength of a single arm.
And with cramping fatigue,
from a lethal height,
I dropped through the trees and into the bed of a pick-up truck,
all cold and rusted and unreal.
I was broken, but not perished, and magically: instantly bandaged.
Then you found me on your hike
and hated me there.

Read
Write
Tap dance
Say “no”
Say “yes”
Run
Bicycle
Walk
Stretch
Move
Relax
Love
Smile
Think
more.

Ship smashing flooded streets,
cutting the unlikely arctic floor.
Furiously, dreamily, and white all over
until I arrived, to learn my empty pocket.

Ears hot
by your lofty time;
Years passed
I’m still drenched in your brine.

I sold it to him:
a grand escape.
Sophisticated liberation.
UK 2012, here we come.
Real tea time,
biscuits and fish and chips.
Punting on the river
and busing the circuses.
Cycling romantic English parks,
world renown historical architecure,
castle tours and the opera,
markets and maybe Paris.
Just ahead. Because my dreams
told me so for the last time.

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pinterest.com/christinelawson

My Dearest Christine,
You are one of the strongest, most talented, most beautiful people I have ever been blessed with knowing. I admire you so much, and you have given me so much, in such a short time. I remember one of the first times we even talked one on one. We were driving in my car coming back from Carson’s to your house, and I can’t quite recall exactly what we were talking about but I remember you saying “Ya know? I barely know you and I feel like I can tell you anything.” I will never forget that. You have been there for me through the whole Jack thing, bad times at home, and good times at Taco Bell. I’ll always be here for you to talk to, even though it sounds so cliché, it’s absolutely true. Remember to keep your chin up, I love you and your other friends and family do also, and don’t forget God loves you too. Best wishes in the new year, Christine.

Your Friend,
Rebecca A. Cleveland

Old wounds need not repairing,
for they are beyond health.
Your wounds need to be noticed,
by yourself, by all
as scars with stories that you learn
to stand to tell.

Cowardice and ignorance
come both old and young;
big and small;
boy and girl;
short and tall.

Give me something to read
from your bright light
LED personality.