for my best friends

1

our friendship needs no labels; the kind of thing where

we ride back from a college basketball game together

on a bus too bright for March and, 

voice raspy from shouting,

you fall asleep in my lap with Noah Kahan playing I think and all it takes

is the grey-white winter bleed outside the window

for me to press my forehead to the cold glass and relax,

our heartbeats timed to the rumble of the highway beneath us.

2

our friendship can be anything we want; you're the person who'll

climb old trees and tease me when I almost die following you,

giggling from your perch as you press a watermelon lollipop

to your pink getting pinker tongue - but you're the person who'll

put your head on my chest as we rock back and forth

in the hammock in the silvery breeze silent except for the

leaves rustling overhead and our unspoken enjoyment of each other.

3

our friendship needs no explanation; the kind of day where

you pull out your iPad and suddenly we're standing at the kitchen counter,

graham crackers and sprinkles littering the cutting board and our hearts,

our tongues thick and warm with Nutella and the knowledge that,

armed with a bike and a carefree determination

softer than the cotton candy seemingly sweetening every step you take,

we will never have to be apart.

4

our friendship needs no boundaries; every season is hallmarked

by our insistence upon reaching the blue bars, the ones that feel so high

you could probably touch heaven with your middle finger if you tried but 

we're too scared for that, comfortable with swinging, our hands

playground-sweaty and calloused red with the summer that

lives inside your lilac scent, knocking our sneakers off and into

each other and we are laughing and dropping to the ground as to 

prevent our joy from dripping out of us, although

it could probably make the flowers grow.

5

this friendship I share with the most wonderful girls

in the world,

H and E and S and K and T and M and C and F and S and L,

the prettiest smartest kindest weirdest coolest

girls

that I choose to spend all my days with,

is the light in the center of this greenish marble hurtling around the indifferent sun while it spins and the reason humans are so mixed up

is because we are spinning as we speak

and we need love to fix us.

luckily, I've got that.