A beloved friend

has never left my side

even when my side got unbearably prickly and sharp.

I pushed over towers

and stood while they fell around me.

She helped me pick

through the rubble

and learn to forgive myself.

 

A friend I traveled across the globe with

suggested

we spend a weekend away and

cover ourselves with dirt,

but only after we hit a tree 20 times with a stick.

 

One long-loved friend looks at me with wide blue eyes

and knows parts of me better than anyone else.

She also knows words

and uses them

early and often.

 

A corgi and a dinosaur

walk arm-in-arm with me, the monkey–

the most uncommon of friendships.

Our hearts pay no mind to our mismatched facades

as we pass a fluorescent obelisk

rising out of the desert floor.

 

To another friend, order and discipline

are second nature.

She keeps small piles of my abandoned belongings

always to be returned to me promptly.

 

One friend covers herself in rainbows

and teaches me how to let go.

 

And yet another gives me hope with feathers.

 

I wake from nightmares

Afraid I’ve said too much

or not enough.

 

How does one small flower find a way to

thank all these suns?