“You’ll understand when you’re older,”
Was what I said the last time we talked.
You were crying for every reason my eyes were dry
and I know it sounded condescending
because you are sixteen and I am eighteen
but that seventeenth year meant all the difference to me.
That seventeenth year you’ll be able to drive
and you’ll go to parties and I’m sure all the guys
will be looking at you and when that happens
I hope you’ll meet someone really special
and learned what I learned about how to love
and breakup and all the other stuff that’s supposed to
go in between.

But I digress because I know you’re getting the wrong
idea again.

We can’t be friends because of every night
you reached out to me and we talked for hours
before we both went to sleep and I’d be staring
at a black screen and a voice.
We can’t be friends because every time that voice
stopped I still heard you in my head, even though
mine probably went away in yours.
We can’t be friends because I read too much of
your poetry and screenplays and you read way
too much of whatever I was working on in October.
We can’t be friends because every time you saw
me you saw me and every time I saw you I saw
us and you closed my eyes to everything else.