Dear diary

Maybe I’ll start a diary, I think. 

A diary of you. 

Not a blog. 

Though I could write books and a full blog about you. 

Maybe a book. 

It would be a NYT bestseller, my poetry. 

No one else was ever my muse like you. 

How do I know? 

That first poem. 

That’s how. 

Tell me there is one better? 

There isn’t. 

Maybe this is entry one:

Dear diary. 

Today on my way home I waved at you when I saw you and you waved back. I’ll take the high road. I’m shocked you acknowledged my existence.

Yes, today I saw my friend/ex/ghost/past/someone…. Is there a word for you anymore?

Is there a word in the English dictionary for former friend?

 There isn’t. 

You get two words: Former friend. 

And I get all the fucking depression and heartache that took me, already in my grave from my job loss, and buried me 6ft under 6ft under. 

You get analogies and metaphors and these horrible depressing, aching poems. 

You get power. You won, right? 

You get empathy and sorrow. 

Or something. 

I feel sorry for you. Why? 

This. 

This is why: 

You’re the one who has to lay your head on your pillow and sleep with yourself at night and tell yourself what you did to me was good. Was the right thing. Was you doing better than the day before. 

Really? 

Is this what good looks like? 

Yay you. 

I am the one who sleeps alone and still, 28 weeks later, cries herself to sleep like a little kid. 

I suppose that makes 2 of us who feel like shit at night. 

Thanks. 

Thanks for that. 

Would 8 year old you do this to 8 year old me? 

That’s a real question. 

So is this:

Would 39 year old you pick up the phone and fix this? Treat me with some fucking respect and dignity? 

No one is making you do this. 

Or will 28 weeks turn to months turn to years turn to pain washed all the way down the river till one of us dies or the end of time?

Was this who you always were and I just ignored all the signs?

Or were there signs? 

I think so. 

You get poetry that’s in the same realm as Andrea Gibson, only undead and full of aching instead of love. Oh I could write love poems for years. And about everyone I’ve ever loved. That’s how deep my love is for everyone and everything. 

But no one, not even you, understands that. 

Or tries. 

No one gets me. 

Understands me. 

I’m in a universe all of my own out without a lantern looking for not myself, but for a universe where you and I are still friends. 

So tonight I saw_____. 

And here I am writing, hoping she will call/text/knock on my door. 

Or hoping the world will end so there will be nothing to feel anymore.

My muse, my 2am ghost, my now nothing. 

There is no word for you in the English vernacular. 

Except: nothing. Ghost. No one. Ex friend. 

But maybe someday soon there will be: friend. 

Just friend. 

Because today you waved back. 

And maybe, maybe that was something. 

 

How???

What would it have meant

to choose presence over pixels—

to say goodbye face-to-face

instead of sending me

a flicker of words that ended everything?

How did you ever call this friendship,

if it could be cut away

by the push of a button?

When you stumbled across poems

that weren’t meant for you to find, because I never shared them with you—-

what if you had paused?And…

What if you had asked,

“What does this mean about love,

about memory,

about the way someone (me) keeps another alive (you) in any form, but for me as poetry…”

Do you ever wonder

what we’d be now

if you hadn’t called finding my words enough to disappear? And forever. 

What if you’d chosen grace

instead of retreat?
Was I really that easy to throw away? Or were you just looking for a reason to lose this friendship? 
It feels like the latter. 

What kind of bond might have grown—

if instead of closing the door you had said,

“I see you, and though it unsettles me,

I still want to know you. I still honor you. I choose to stay.”
Why didn’t you stay? Why did you leave, and on purpose? Was I really that shitty of a friend? No. No I was fucking good. And you know it. I still am. 

Would laughter still circle our conversations?

Would our history still feel intact?

Would the word friend

still fit?

And in quiet moments,

do you ever think about

the story that could have been—CAN BE—

not erased,

not broken by silence,

but carried forwardWith the empathy you claim to love in people, 

with mercy,

with trust,

with a little more courage

than you chose?
I chose all of them. I never wanted to lose you. You told me the same. But I’m the one who chose all of the above. I still do. But when will you? 
No one is making you keep doing this. And no one wants you to come back more than me. 
But… Was I really that easy to throw away? Or were you just looking for a reason to lose this friendship? Is this REALLY what you wanted and want and will always want? 
Because no one misses you more than me. 

- - -

Revised 9/13
———-
“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky.

Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life,” Taylor sings. 

“You assume I’m fine, but what would you do if I—

I break free and leave us in ruins?

Took this dagger in me and removed it,

gain the weight of you then lose it.

Believe me, I could do it.

If it’s all in my head tell me now,

tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.

I know my love should be celebrated—

but you tolerated it.

I sit and watch you,”…

watch how easily you erased me.

You left me, ex and friend,

but you will not erase what and who I am. 
Well, you can. But I will remain whole my own self. I belong to me. 

And I want everything that is mine back in my hands that is still in your house but I’m sure you threw all of these away like you did to our friendship:

especially the Arkansas pottery—

clay formed with my hands,

a vessel I made whole before you painted it rainbow like I asked. ….then broke me. 

My Chappell cup. My T Swift glass with a terrarium I hoped for. My poems and cards i wrote you. My dignity. Respect. Empathy. Compassion. Kindness. And our friendship. Will I ever get any of these back? Would you meet me for brunch or a walk or anything? Any fucking thing? Because it give the world for the last thing on that list. But people and relationships aren’t transactional. 

My friend.

How I miss you, my friend.  

And at the end of 2025 or before,

I will post everything I ever wrote—here and in Google docs and the backs of envelopes—

every word, every scar turned scripture.
It’s not a threat or a promise. It’s just what I choose for me. Unless maybe you meet me for a walk or brunch or dinner or drinks and we start over from scratch. Maybe I’ll change my mind. And not because you asked for that. But because only I, me, controls me. 

Because no one sent you here. Here. You read all my words on your own. 

Found them on your own. Then you used them against me to end our friendship. Was our friendship really that unmeanifnful? That cut. Too much. Who the fuck does THIS to someone like me who only ever poured goodness into you? Into what we had as friends?And none of them were mean or hurtful. They might have hurt you. But I told you that was never what they were. They were mine and me processing my reality. They have been that since I was a child. They were and are and will always be all love and pain in their purest form—words and emotions. 
I have to make sense of this. 

THIS. 

This that will never make sense until you’re back in my life. 

So until then? 

I write. 

Until you come back I will write forever. 

Until this makes sense. 

Until my ink runs dry. 

Because these, like Taylor’s words she bought back from the machine for millions, are mine. My story. Me. Like a diary she said in her podcast with Travis. 

Because I will not be reduced to a whisper in margins,

I will not be erased in the footnotes of my own life.

Or yours. 

No, I don’t want to be reduced to what I already am to you but will forever write how I wish I wasn’t. 
Nothing. No one. 

I’ll continue to try to resurrect your ghost with ink.

Even if I know dead is what you’ll always be. 

A small part of me will always believe in the you I believed you to be:

The you who promised you’d never leave. My heart will break forever, will always grieve.

And that? That is on you not me. 

I’ll always believe this isn’t what you want.

Past tense, present tense, future tense. 

That I, too, am your 2 am ghost.

but...

neither one of has to be…
Footnotes. 

To sit on rooftops

Revised Sept 


Two things can be true at the same time she says.

Like how I used to write you letters

But you always seemed to hate them,

As they always backfired on me as if you didn’t believe my words to be true.

I gave love, and you made me ache after you said you didn’t know what to do with them or threw words in my face that cut deep.

And both your side and mine are true.

How you broke up with me and cut me off as your friend and the latter hurt far more. It still does. It almost killed me. But why you did it are two different stories.

Yours and mine.

And both are true.

You are now a ghost

I try to resurrect with ink.

Oh how I wish you could be here.

But you keep choosing not to and probably always will even if you promised me you never would leave. Would always be my friend.

I am within and without. And both can be true.

I loved you. More than anyone.

I can’t explain what we had but it’s not what I had after you, which was good, don’t get me wrong.

But no one is you.

I can love everyone new and you.

And both can be true.

Not just anyone or everyone is in my dreams at night.

I still dream of closed doors,

the ones you slammed.

I dream of you but they’re not of love—they’ve turned to horrific nightmares now. About how you left. How I miss you. How unkind this is.

I wake up tortured and grieving.

What’s better?

To be asleep or awake and with you gone?

Neither.

I want to be in neither world.

And both can be true.

Some memories

don’t ask permission to visit.

They just show up,

sit down,

and act like they still live here.

And both can be true:

You shattered me.

And I’ve never been stronger even if I am at my lowest.

You never chose me even though you said you wanted me forever.

You never chose me forever as your friend even though you said you would. I guess I should have read the room, the signs. Like you never adding me back on social media. Never asking to do anything. I always had to. It was all a lie, wasn’t it? And I just gaslit myself that you were a real friend. Right? Or am I wrong? 

So now I choose love that stays. For now.

me. 

This is my truth:

I loved you more than anything.

More than anyone.

and I love Everyone new 

and I’m still learning

what to do with all that truth

in one body.

But if I had to choose

between the ghost of someone I loved and staying friends I’d always choose both or the latter. 

But always the latter. 

But I’d also choose this:

You were a lesson. Oh how I just want you to just be a friend. Not a lesson. MY FRIEND.

Concerts, drinks, dinner, travel.

I’d choose that over love any day.

And that alone is true.

But if you ever came back—

I’d give anything to have you as just a friend,

just to laugh and talk and sit on rooftops again—

I’d open the door.

Not because I need you.

But because some things

are worth forgiving.

And both can be true.