The trees look like they're weeping, and if I believed in anything beyond the material world, I’d think the heavens were calling to me. There’s something clandestine about the way the wind tickles my eyelashes. Right now, I feel like I’d be happier six feet underground, but if I were, I wouldn’t have the privilege of protecting myself from the late summer chill. This morning, I could’ve sworn the forecast said 65 degrees and sunny, but the wonders of life always reveal themselves through the unknown. You wouldn’t know it, but I’m writing this with my eyes closed as if I’m a savant, like Reed Richards or the BBC version of Sherlock. I wonder how it feels to be a savant. If I were one, it would make writing a hell of a lot easier, but I can’t slap a bunch of words on the wall and stir them around like alphabet soup until they resemble something halfway to poetic brilliance. 

With my knees pointed to the sky and the buildings above protecting me from UV rays, I try to forget that my spine is digging into the bench beneath me. Instead, I’ll think about my True Religion jeans that resemble an inverted sky. I’ll probably take a picture of the image before me because I still ache for the Tumblr girl aesthetic, I saw in 2014. Plus, I need physical evidence of everything I see, or none of my experiences feel real. I fear I’ll develop dementia like my grandfather, and my mind will root like a moldy peach. I despise peaches as much as I detest thinking about my future. So, I’ll shelve that thought for later when listening to Mitski and staring at the Deadpool plushie one of my best friends gave me.  

Right now, I’ll focus on the people around me swarming like bees. If bees wore tapping dancing shoes, they might sound as tiny and muffled as the disembodied people floating around me. Though I’m six feet away from everything, just the way I like it, there’s something about the collective heat circulating through my bones that warms and angers me in equal measure. Deep down, I know the only reason I’m angry is because I’m nervous. I can't stand the BO settling into my clothes. I’d sleep on my headphones like clouds if my neck wasn't crooked. If I turn on my backpack even an inch more, I might fall from this bench and cause a herniated disc. I used to tell myself that I don’t hold grudges, a lie that I haven’t believed since I was 14, but If I pop a disc, I’ll never forgive my messed-up spine. 

It's moments like these when all I have is time and space to think that I cringe at every transgression I’ve made against my sense of self. You’ll never hear me say I have regrets because I don’t or perhaps because I won’t allow myself to. But the biggest mistake I’ve ever made was not answering a call. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’ve been torturing myself for months trying to gift-wrap everything I don’t know into prettily packaged words like I'm Maya Angelou. I’d steal her face and wear it as a mask, but if I did, that would be dishonest, and I promised myself I would be honest with you. I’ve decided to step into my skin because the truth is an ugly head with two faces that will charge at you like an angry bull. If the truth doesn’t kill me, my pride will. So, I’ll stop beating around the bush. 

I lost my best friend a year ago.

I didn’t know it until closed my eyes and focused on the stillness in my heart. I can’t help but think about J. Cole’s “The Cut Off.” I heard that song for the first time in my senior year of high school. I have a vivid memory of letting my emotional state implode in a parent-teacher conference, and my mom, who was still recovering from her mastectomy, had to whisk me away to an empty classroom. She continued the conference while I listened to Elenor Rigby by Beatles, and I let my eyes burst like a frozen pipe. I still listen to “The Cut Off” when I’m feeling scummy. J. Cole hit me where it hurt when he said, “I know the punishment for you is that you not with me.” My nana used to say I’m hard-headed, but J. Cole cracked my skull so that must not always be true. I heard that lyric at the tender age of 18. At the time the only thing I could think of was my dad, but I’d been waving a red face at the bull called truth for too long. The bull is coming for me. 

I remember the last day I saw my best friend. She had texted me in the morning and I left in the afternoon. That was back when my mom was freshly unemployed, and I still tolerated her boyfriend. I ran out of the house with an enthusiastic goodbye because I got to see my best friend of ten years after months of playing cat and mouse over text. I stepped into her old beat-up car; a car that was hard-earned by wrangling 8 to 10-year-olds, or whatever, at the elementary school five minutes down the road from Target. As the wind whipped against my corneas, she went on about my lack of a driver's license. I could barely focus on her words as my heart pounded in my ears while the vibrancy of plush green trees mixed violently with the red bricks owned by two-story houses. The peaceful nature of tucked-away residential neighborhoods was taken a hammer too when she offered her services as a driving instructor, but by that point, she had been speeding down an empty road with garbage bags flying around in her trunk. She always had a way of making me fear for both of our lives. I could barely think with my brain sloshing around in my head, so I didn’t respond. 

That never mattered to her. She could move from one subject to the next faster than a cheetah hunting its prey. She had been asking if we could settle down in an apartment since our senior year of high school, so it was no surprise when it was brought up again. As broke high school students, renting an apartment seemed like an inside joke. A distant dream. With the way she was driving, I would’ve believed it if someone had told me we had done a Marty McFly and gone back to the future. I think we were 19 by then, but something about the way she said it made me feel like we were 16 again, and I’m not gonna lie; I wished Reed Richards was there so he could share some of that cosmic radiation with me. At least then I could pull a Gwenpool and portal hop into the 616 universe. My life would probably be infinitely more complicated, but anywhere was better than suffering through that moment. I wanted to leave home, maybe not as desperately, but I did want a life together; just not in the same way she did. I reminded her that couldn’t drive and that I didn’t have a job. She reminded me that she could pay the bills and take me anywhere I needed to go, but obviously, I couldn’t let her do that because no matter how selfish I am, I’m not cruel enough to drain someone's bank account. 

She was quiet after that, and maybe this is hyperbolic, but I swear I could hear every shuttering breath whisper against my ear. She was quiet when we went to lunch. She was quiet when she pushed my hand away when I tried to pay for my overpriced burger and fries. She was quiet when we sat at my mom’s hardwood dining room table. I tried not to pick at the pealing varnish as we watched anime. When she left, there was this look in her eyes. To this day, I still don’t know how to describe it. The best I can say is that she looked like someone who never wanted to leave. Like she’d be shot on the spot as soon as she stepped out of the door and onto my mom’s worn-down welcome home mat. An awkward tension hung in the air, but we had been there so many times before. I resorted to one of the only things I’m sorta of good at, making a joke out of anything that hurts. As I walked her to her car, I yelled “So long” and “Farewell,” like we were in an episode of Lassie or something. The stress of the moment stole most of my strength, but I mustered what I could so I wouldn’t sound so feeble. She left with her lips set in a thin line. An ache settled in my heart as I watched her car peel away from the curve, beyond my small cul-de-sac and the bristling Layland cypress trees. I wish I could say I didn’t know it then, but something about the way she left felt so tragically final. Somehow, I knew we would never see each other again.  

After all that preamble my first instinct is to bring everything full circle. I can attribute that to my insatiable longing to find meaning in anything I don't understand. I'll go against my instincts because I said what I had to say. Though leaving everything in the open is painful, I'm done rambling. I'll see you again when I feel like writing with my eyes closed.