I lean against the windowpane, the sun shining brightly in my eyes, and I bravely face the day before me.  How could it not be clear I remain your closest friend?  Are there doubts?

Too much time has passed since last I saw your smile.  My heart misses its warmth.  It has not entirely forsaken me, however, for I remember it all too clearly when I close my eyes.

My skin warmed by the sun’s kiss, I take in the blue sky above me, its poignant emptiness all too familiar to me in this place.  I wish you back again.  We were no more than children, you and I, young and energetic, immature and emotionally tender.  How then comes such ferocity of emotion?  How then does life feel so barren without you?  How could such a juvenile relationship give life to such longing?

Do you ever wonder how I feel?  Do you think about our friendship and what has been left behind?  Do you regret letting go so easily?  I feel all those things and more.

I guess time will always carry on.  It pulls us along, forcefully when necessary, discarding the past to make room for the future.  Within my sacred heart, there exists a place where time stands still—for it has no hold—and in that place my memories and feelings for you live in lonely happiness.

I wish I could tell you… somehow communicate to you the message written upon my heart, written with the pain of your absence.  The writing is heavy and clear.

I return to that window too often, from the time I awake until the time I find sleep.  I watch the day stretch endlessly from sunrise to sunset.  It is excruciating leisureliness.  I remember when days could not last long enough for us, never enough time for all the adventures, not enough hours to contain our friendship.  Now they drag on endlessly filled with the emptiness of your absence.

Yet those days of yore held so much for us.  Phone calls and small talks and meaningful conversations passing between us.  Dark nights spent walking in silence filled with unspoken understanding.  So much shared we thought we could never forget.  And broken hearts mended between friends.  Is it all hazy to you now?  Or do you remember clearly those lazy days from long ago?

Why did you leave?  Did you have to go?  Why did you let them take you away from me?  Did you decide to be someone else?  Did you need to see what only the future could show you, what only time passing could reveal?  I wonder…

Even if you never return, even if I never see you again, even if the end of time itself should rendezvous with me first… Still, in the time I have known you I will have learned to love you better, to miss you more, to cherish what we had with greater clarity and conviction.

I stand once again at the window.  The night is fully upon me and everything is cloaked in darkness.  Are you under this sky with me?  When you look up, do you see the same stars I see?  Is this very same breeze visiting me now also touching your skin?  I hear it brush against the glass by which my face now rests.  Do you feel it too?  Or do you also hear it from behind some barrier that separates you from the world at large?

Here before the altar of time where I have sacrificed so much, must I need sacrifice again?  How much can be taken?  How much must I give until this beseecher finally is heard?  Do I ask too much?

Time takes its toll from each of us.  It answers to no one and explains nothing.  It is a path we all must travel and a predator we all must face.  In spit of that, it would be nice to spend some time with you again, to see your smile and feel its warmth, to love your company one more time.  Even  if only one more time.  Is the hourglass so stingy that it cannot afford me even that small request?

I stand waiting.  It could be just moments away, or I could be old and gray before you come back into my life, or, and I fear it might be this, I could finish my days without ever seeing you again.  Excluding the latter, it matters not.  I will be counting the days as I have been doing.  When I finally see you, I will run to meet you, I will embrace you, and I will welcome you back.

Perhaps you can stay here with me a while, should you return, even if only for a moment or two.  Days gone by are but a memory away and we can remember them together.  For the briefest passage of time, perhaps things could even seem the way they used to be.

I turn and walk away from the window now.  The world smothered in shadows, only the stars above keep me company, and staring into such emptiness serves no purpose other than to punctuate the void where you once lived.  Twinkling lights in the sky, their distance, much like that between us, serves only to remind me of what is lost.

[circa 1988]