The Memories of Ivy

Holding my hand out for you

I never said goodbye to you
And vice versa
That's what I remember
After I had harassed
That diamond of a girl,
Your friend
And someone you cared about
You stopped speaking to me

It was clear we drifted
I blamed myself for it
For creating the distance
And for not talking to you
When I needed a friend
But we were no longer
The close friends we were back then

When we were young
We used to play together
We would call each other
And have long conversations
However our education got in the way
Of us being closer and there for each other
We got separated into different classes
You had new friends
And I didn't want to interfere
The circumstances just kept us apart

After I left for the fresh start
You never called me
You didn't say goodbye
I wanted some inkling of you
That was going to miss me
And wished me all the best with life
But nothing
Not even a batting of your eye

The times I tried to reach out
You didn't reply
I wanted to reconnect
It seemed you didn't want to
And you weren't interested in reaching
For my hand when I held it out for years

By the time we were to graduate
I saw your little brother pass me
He was all grown up and sharp looking
Only a year younger than you
But he had a big glow up
From when I last saw him
When I saw you from behind
I tapped you on the shoulder
You saw me for the first time
In a long time
For about a few seconds
Of holding eye contact
Before I got pulled away

A while back
I did give up on reaching out to you
When it was much clearer
You were happy, even without me
And I never want to interfere
On a friend's happiness

***

Reflection: I can't really begin to describe how much I missed my friend.

We've known each other since we were children and placed in the same daycare together. I knew her younger brother, and he was so kind and cool. But when we entered elementary school, we got assigned different teachers and put into different classrooms. She made new friends, while I did the same. But we remembered each other. The one and only year we had the same teacher in elementary school was when we entered 2nd grade. After that year, we still got different teachers.

In middle school, everything changed. She had become friends with the girl from the Diamonds are piercing for the obsessive heart poem. I grew more and more distant from her, as I was coping with the aftermath of my parents' divorce. After I harassed one of her friends, the girl from my poem, she completely cut off contact with me. I didn't deserve an explanation or an apology as to why she did it. It wouldn't have been right or fair to continue our friendship, when we both weren't putting in the equal effort to make it work.

I know that she is happy and that she doesn't need me. Even though my memories of our time together have faded, I wish they would last. But there is so much time that a memory could last for, that its purpose of keeping it beyond the allotted time is gradually lost as the seconds and minutes go by.