Best Friends by myrrhluz
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Description
I saw, from Tara's post last night, that the topic for the January challenge for the Writer's Gallery is "Best Friends". Tara's beautiful poem is here I'm sorry I have not been around much lately. Many years ago I became very good at burying pain by building walls between it and me. I later learned how hard these walls were to disassemble. I started a new building project when my sister, Leslie died. It was necessary at the time. But her light is too bright and too integral to my being, to be kept for long enclosed. I have been thinking about her lately. Opening chinks in the wall and letting the light and the pain reach me.
Best Friends
I lie here reading your diary
Which came to me
After you were gone
Stupid really
Reading your diary now
When I have to get up in the morning
You were two years older
And I followed you about
In thought and actions
Our family called me your shadow
We traveled down rivers in Nazi Germany
On the family picnic table
Thwarted evil matrons in dark orphanages
On a creaky swing set
Explored a magic tree house with chests of treasure
On the same old picnic table
It was a multipurpose picnic table
With daddy long-legs spiders underneath
We moved to New Jersey
About the time
The two years between us
Became large in your mind
I was delegated to the role of younger sister
Rather than best friend
And I didn't like it one bit
Hard words . . . fights . . . distance
One thing about families
You don't stop being together
You don't stop loving each other
Just because you are not paying attention
After a while of not really looking
We saw each other again
And on a more equal footing
Were again best friends
Forty years ago we sat on kitchen chairs
Emoting wildly
While an older sister
Looked on in amazement
At these alien creatures related to her
For the next forty years
We rarely lived close to each other
At times I worried we were drifting apart again
But always when we got together
It was as if we had never been apart
In those forty years
We've traveled together
Rescued kittens in Rome
Walked country lanes in Ireland
And Frenchmen Street in New Orleans
When we got together
We would play at least one game of Spite Malice
Sitting crossed legged with cards in between
Sipping Amaretto
I mostly forgave you for usually winning
I remember the airports
The warm hug with a tingle of excitement
On arrival
The warm hug with an edge of sadness
On departure
In five large binders
Are letters
Forty years of connection
Across land and sea
My thirteen page letter with the words
"Have fun trying to read this"
Scribbled in a tight spot on the first page
Thirteen pages of excitement
My first trip overseas
Your letter with the words
'Write me'
In parentheses
After each sentence
I did
Letters sprinkled with quotes
Of the songs we were listening to
As we wrote
And doodles stretched and cramped
In corners and down the page
In those letters, you live
In your diary, you live
In my memory
In my heart
You live
My best friend
Comments (26)
braynes
Lovely
Faemike55
Very beautiful writing! I feel I'm right there watching you two laughing and playing! Talking and pretending! being and feeling!
clbsmiley
Just wonderful.... Great release and growth for you really sweet. :).
alanwilliams
from the heart, beautiful
sandra46
SUPERLATIVE WORK
ladylake
Sisters always........wonderful work.
npauling
A lovely heartfelt poem beautifully written and it reminds me of me and my sisters. It is hard when they are no longer around but they do live on in our thoughts and hearts. You are in my thoughts too.
magnus073
Tara's post truly was beautiful, and I read it over and over. She really has a talent for expressing herself in poetry. Of course Lucinda, maybe I'm a bit biased that you are very talented also. Your reflections and thoughts on your sister Leslie really touched me. I know how close you two were and how difficult it is to even talk about this. Knowing that made your words even more moving and I found myself having to step away to collect my thoughts. It seems you and I deal with pain in much the same manner, and that helps me understand your situation and the wall you constructed. The feelings you shared with us today was another marvelous step in chipping away at that wall and letting the light pass through.
wysiwig
Thanks a lot, Lucinda. Whatever macho cred I had left just took a big hit. I was ok until the last bit. Now I'm dabbing at my eyes. Beautiful and heartbreaking and memorable. Thank you for showing such courage to share this with us.
mickeyrony
When a friend eats your heart, my Beautiful Lucinda . There is no offer forgiveness to the absence of our passions. Still, the heart being torn from day to day, to offer us nothing. All penalties, continue to scold us, the absence of this friend. We must let go of all this hate that destroys us day by day. When the heat of the day and empty our mind that seems to dissipate evil: but this night comes early misfortunes and sorrows that plague us back at full gallop ... Nothing stops running, it must cherish this friend that she can finally see the new path to guide the eternal needs prayers and dreams. . I am very sad for you my beautiful MICHEL Quand une amie mange ,notre coeur, ma Belle Lucinda. Il n'y a aucun pardon à offrir à l'absence de nos passions . Toujours la, dans le coeur qui se déchire de jours en jours, pour nous offrir le néant . Toutes peines encourues, ne cessent de nous gronder, de l'absence de cette amie . Il faut laisser partir toute cette haine qui nous détruit de jours en jours . Quand la chaleur du jour vide notre esprit et que le mal semble se dissiper: mais que vient tôt cette nuit où les malheurs et peines qui nous tourmentent reviennent au grand galop ... Rien ne cesse de courir,il faut chérir cette amie pour qu'elle puissent enfin voir son nouveau chemin qui la guidera vers l'éternel besoins de prières et songes . . Je suis bien triste pour toi ma Belle MICHEL
mgtcs
Beautiful post about not only "best friends", Lucinda, but the universal theme of the loss of loved ones and the human condition. Hard to keep one's eyes dry, one's heart from hurting. Well done, and may God bless us all.
durleybeachbum
Incredibly moving.
auntietk
Ohhhhhhhhhhh ... so beautifully written. You touch me to the core, my friend. I'm glad the challenge gave you the wings to do this. Your connection and your love comes through in every line. I wish I could easily convey what's in my heart, but it's more about connection than words, so I'll let it wait. Perhaps over coffee ...
jayfar
Very poignant and heart feeling.
helanker
This is such a loving and very touching poem, Licinda. Lucky are those who have beautiful and sweet memories. Myself included. :)
drifterlee
Wonderful poem!
jendellas
Lucinda, what beautiful words & memories of the years you & Leslie spent together & apart. xxxx
emmecielle
Wonderful writing! :)
flavia49
so beautiful! Thanks for sharing!
jocko500
I meet her and she was a blessing. i saw the love between you two and knew it was of old ; from when you both was young. It be ok with you. time will heal.
Chipka
This is incredibly moving, poignant, touching, and in spots, outright hilarious! Just like life itself: there's a wonderful richness and a wonderful sense of clarity. What I like the most is the sense of poetic truth that only the written word can convey. Oral traditions are fantastic in what they're able allow, especially in terms of things like improvisation, the connection of people, through something as frail as a voice; but, the written word moves me so much more, and I think it's because the only "voice" we hear (as readers) is an imagined one. There's a wonderful, kinda shifty fluidity in that, as well as a wonderful sense of connection between best friends, and between those best friends and readers of the words written from one to the other. Families are such weird things. Some work well together. Others don't. Some give rise to best friends, and others give rise to deadly enemies, or worse, indifferent strangers. It's quite wonderful to read of sisters who happen to be best friends. I loved the little connections, often involving other living things: daddy longleg spiders under picnic tables, Italian-speaking kittens in need of a good rescue...I also loved the touches that reveal doodles in margins and tight, compacted writing, or parenthetical asides (requests to keep in touch). Everything in this is gem-like in clarity, and there's a wonderful purity of tone that deftly side-steps sentimentality while also reveling, basking, and growing within a sense of very real human connection. It's even better that such connection is emotional, as only a best-friend relationship can support. This is truly brilliant writing, especially with the ending: it serves as both a declaration and an observation of fact. Humans are only partly physical, anyway...that which we remember, that which we express, and that which is held in those we cherish (and who cherish us) is something that passes on, on, and on...and it's that wonderful near-immortality that renders human mortality so wonderfully complex, heady, and heart-restoring. This is brilliant writing.
anianiani
Friendship is a blessing..Thanks Lucy.
CoreyBlack
This is so incredibly moving that it has rendered me speechless. Amazing writing and tribute.
MagikUnicorn
OMG I agree with chipka Big wowwwwwwwwww
0rest4wicked
I can't agree with Jocko. In my experience "Time does not heal all wounds". Time only allows one to grow accustomed to the loss. It is good that you've allowed the light in through these new walls Lucinda. Even greater is that you've allowed yourself to express it so.
danapommet
Phenomenal writing and feeling Lucinda. I feel a bond that has not ended but frozen in time and it will thaw again when you meet again. Love is the strongest bond of all!!!