Remember When?

I decided I wanted to post a little poem that I wrote about one of my best friends. The poem was published in our school literary magazine, but I want to post it to my blog as well. It's about life, about leaving, and about remembering. 

Remember when we first met?

You were so full of questions, the pointless kind

That drove our teacher up the wall.
In desperation, she sat me, the fountain of answers, next to you

I answered your questions, the sincere and the surprising and the straight up stupid

But the most important answer I ever gave you

Was a yes, a yes to your plea for a forever friendship

Remember when we went to sixth grade camp?

And we made up secret code names for everything.

And there was that one time when

I accused everyone of stealing my socks

Until I eventually found out that

I was sitting on top of them

Remember when we went through the Harry Potter years?

When you would set up a shrine to Harry Potter

Every day in fifth period

Complete with Harry Potter playing cards and posters and replica wands

You had a lofty goal of reading the entire series 777 times.

Pretty sure you’re still working on that goal.

Remember when we had to endure endless teasing in second period?

You dropped a banana (stolen from the teacher) on the floor in class

I got the blame (because I always got the blame)

As punishment, I had to go cut grass with a pair of safety scissors

To feed the class turtle

I came back wet, because that was the one day

Rain had broken through the dryness of our Californian drought

Remember when we walked barefoot down the beach?

With big plastic bags we collected trash

And talked about life and college and leaving

I don’t want to leave. I want what’s here and now forever…

But. I was then, and am now, consoled by the knowledge

That between us, it will never really be goodbye

As long as we can still

Remember when?