Most of us all just went home for the first time this year...

... And I'm probably not the first person to say that it feels weird spending weeks laughing with new friends, only to come home and find old jokes and memories flood in through your door, as friends of the past still weave their way into your present.

I know we are all growing up and moving on with our lives, but there are memories—moments—out there in the world that you shouldn't let go of due to a pesky little thing called time.

There are people out there who have shaped us and made us laugh, cry, dance, sing—the works.

Here's a tribute today, to those people. Even if there are friends from the past who don't make it through your door anymore, at least open the window of memory...

A Tribute

You know where to wait for me!

You know, at the corner!

That wasn’t really a corner…

But we called it a corner away,

Because that’s where our ends would meet

And fight each other

And challenge each other

And laugh together.

That’s where the black dress would flow in and out.

And the caps would shield all their eyes, but I knew

That they were gleaming in hues of brown and of blue

So sparkly were we, between me and you.

Oh God how I loved hearing laughs echo through.

It would bless both my ears and you’d tell me yours too.

Our laughs warmed our bellies, warmed hands, and soon blew

Through windows of souls and gave sparkles their hues.

And I’d fall in love—

With every eye I looked into.

Because each was so beautiful,

And had sparkles there too.

There were tears, there—

Everywhere.

But many never bothered to look...

I knew from the start I would cry at the end.

With her feet on the floor.

And her sitting behind me

And the sparkles falling,

Everywhere, too.

And I wasn’t afraid of my voice—not at all.

Don’t you remember laughing with me?

And those who did not,

I felt bad for them all.

Because they missed out on “happy”

And the chance to show all their teeth.

Oh, I loved spilling my words on the paper you signed.

And sitting adjacent from love oh so blind.

Those days when, for us, the sun didn’t shine.

Pulling out knives from our hearts and our spine.

And no one will know how it felt to be there.

To slosh in the pain, from your car,

To the rain.

How it felt to feel loved

By those who love wisely.

How it felt to be warmed

By those who speak kindly.

Swinging through nights,

All those bug bites…

The summer tasted,

As good as the flavor,

Of fall, spring, and winter combined.

And those nights I saw her on screens more than life.

And those nights that we cried over dreams more than life

Because we lived in bubble that burst larger than life.

And the slides I slid down,

All the ice cream we drowned,

All the jokes we had bound,

All the sand in our mouths,

All the plates that we cleaned,

All the tears on my skirts,

All the holes in your jeans,

All the love in our palms,

But hers were always so clammy…

Oh, yellow flowers grew larger than red ever did.

Broken I felt when yours wilted and bled...

But don’t forget that there, at the corner,

Our ends are all but so dead.

So please

Just wait for me.

I can’t let go of it yet.