Second Plate

The way a river diverges and connects and diverges again and again, 

but is still called by the same name,

Is how I imagine we are

Sometimes people still accidently call me your name instead of my own

My mom still asks about “my little friend” every other month

The team reminisces when I brought you to practice for the first time

Adorned in your baggy cotton black pants that I lent to you, legs thin and childish

I still remember our friendship like it was the very construct of my very young life,

But it was only about two years long, and it’s been about four years since,

And now my past memories of you outweigh 

My future plans with you

When we happen to find gaps in our schedules that coincide every blue moon

Instead of every moon, in every phase

We catch up with the things we’ve missed in each others lives

Things that we used to tell each other first before anyone else

I suggest we go out to do something you hate

You suggest a place you went with your other friends

We end up at your house where your parents ask how I’ve been

And try to convince me to come over more often

I laugh knowing that I’ve become a guest again here

The “new” plants in your living room are a couple years old now 

You’ve rearranged your room in a different pattern

And your mom doesn’t nag you to eat a second plate of her food anymore

When you re-tie an old torn piece of string together for the fourth or fifth time,

Do you keep pulling, do you keep re-tying, do you keep retrying?

Do you hold on? Do you keep knotting until they’re inseparable?

Do you keep two pieces separate if they can’t be one anymore?

Do you add the “s”, 

String to strings,

River to rivers,

One to ones?