when she was my friend
this scrawny bespectacled kid and I
would laugh and dance
admiring each other’s growth and passions
sharing this steady confidence in our closeness
this triumph

now there’s this wall
of phone games and animosity
the injustice of choosing to love
how I wasn’t loved
while the lonely mystery of what I did this time
still haunts this bathroom corner

where I’m the teen again
afraid to ask
rejected