The last time you wrote . . .

The last time you wrote you said “I love you (not in a gay way)”

Your parenthetical modifier means nothing
I love you too. I know you
slept like a dead person
after you emailed. After
you slumped in your bunk
and everything exploded

I had suicidal thoughts too. Remember
that log gradually crumbling beneath us
as we smoked? We read, “Everything
is meaningless.” We wore a permanent
place for us beneath the Blue Hills
watching jets arrive those evenings

We left within weeks of each other
ignorant to the Middle East. We barely
talked for four years. But you called
my mom on Mother’s Day. I found
my way home. Got educated. Bought
those red kicks you always liked.

When we met again intoxicated
we hardly recognized our faces.
And we bummed our cigarettes
until we collapsed. You left next
day—gone to fix the desert, you grew
a beard, I see on Facebook, got married.

Returning to our crumbled log
nothing has changed. But my hairs
are falling out. And I hold
some memories of you forever
When we sat in the sugar bowl
watching the sunrise, high together.