my copy of
Hard Times
still has all that tape on it
from where you reattached
the cover
our senior year of high school.
we were sitting on one of those
brutal, slatted benches
in the lobby
& the paper cover of
[ what would become ]
my favorite book
tore off
from its time spent in my crowded
backpack. immediately,
I started crying–
but you were so calm,
so forgiving. you jumped
into action; you ran
into the school library
[ behind us ]
& asked the mean old librarian
for some scotch tape.
you fixed it. because that’s who you were,
once upon a time.
you were the boy who fixed all my problems,
even the ones that didn’t make sense,
even the ones you didn’t know about.
& then, a decade later, my unread copy of
Cemetery
Boys split down the seams, its spine
fracturing like bone.
I asked you if you could look at it–
if you could fix it
–and you told me to leave it on the table
for you to get to when
you had the chance.
the day I left, you still hadn’t found the chance.
We still hadn’t fixed us.
-- For These Times















