Addresses scribbled across the page,
phone numbers scattered within the margins.
Email addresses spelled out in cursive, followed by the curly at sign,
sprawled out throughout the old book.
The people belonging to these addresses,
phone numbers, emails, house numbers and streets,
have forgotten faces I can no longer remember.
But their memories wander within the pages.
The curly cursive of Lucy,
the one who promised to always be there when I needed,
the girl who ran across the street just for the hell of it,
the one who bought whiskey and snuck up to the roof
in the early hours of a warm Tuesday morning.
The scribble of Dev,
the one who was always seen clutching a classic novel,
the boy who sat by my side all night when my grandma died,
the one who had a secret rebel side of late night drug deals
and the crazy city party scene, which was hidden behind his mask of intelligence.
The bouncy lettering of Karen,
the one who got chased by boys and kept a box of phone numbers beneath her bed,
the girl who called me when she lost her virginity,
the one who secretly stayed up with a collection of Charles Dickens and a flashlight,
concealed under a thick woolen blanket to hide her obsession.
These people, the best people of my youth,
are faceless now, for I cannot remember what their eye colors were.
But they were my best friends, the ones I knew would always be there,
the ones I could call in the middle of the night and would pick up,
listening to every word I needed to say to ease my restless mind.
They are gone now, buried six feet underground.
Lucy died from a car accident on a snowy afternoon twenty years ago,
Dev from a drug overdose in Maine nearly thirty years ago.
Karen floated away in a dream, up to the clouds
without a warning, not even five years ago.
I went to every funeral, each time with a heavy heart and burning eyes.
I stared into the frozen eyes of every one of my best friends,
and remembered every moment we spent,
breaking the rules just to feel reckless,
drinking until we couldn’t see straight,
crying about loneliness, love and the chaos of life.
I close the book,
set it on the table
and close my eyes.
Because the best things in life aren’t seen,
they are felt.
Remembered by a feeling; and never forgotten.
