A, E, you palindromes, you wonders.

I dreamt of you all night long,
Those endless winter midnights.

  We ran down the line
Until our feet knew each other and
The floorboards scuffed with our steps.

I can smell the kool-aid on your breath,
You were my first real kisses,
Preserved one night like a fly in honey.

A, you held me when my sister screamed euthanasia,
You held me where the river ran dry,
And the trees nearly swallowed us whole.

And you tell me of sweet shops,
Your treasures, your pots of gold.
You make my teeth rot when you speak like that.

E, do you remember that day on the rocks?
Where I read my soliloquy and you were silent?
I barely do, barely do.

Or how you popped my knuckles while holding my hand,
When we stole the tomatoes from the boat garden,
And swayed like hula girls on the dock.

And that silent Sunday,
When we spoke with darkness and the flow of water.
Touching our fingertips with no direct purpose, no reason to be.

While we waited in Hilltop
For the kids to be as scared as we were,
Those hazy days we barely recalled.

Well, we’ve sung and laughed and cried and shared and tripped,
On and on,
Our hearts bursting every second.

Friends are nothing, until they
Sing
Laugh
Cry
Share
Trip
Live
The whole day, the night away,
They must live, together and forever, they must live.