Sixteen  

Science lab
your shadow hides in the corner
I know we’re going to be friends
but I can’t speak with new girl shyness
so we sit in whispers
sharing the air between us
until we’re inseparable

High school romance
your boyfriend hates me
no one seems to understand
you’re not my way inclined
though we play to the rumours
of the teenage gossips
who would tear our self-esteems out
on any other day

Where I go you can’t follow
we don’t talk for two years
I miss you and when I come home
you’re somehow there
we swap numbers
and promise to catch up
before the world pulls us apart again
I’d stay but we were always destined
for different directions

Six years and an ocean apart
snail mail handwriting I recognise
because no one writes as illegibly as you
it’s been nine years since we penned notes
to each other in a science lab
when we were still innocent
but I can still read your writing
though I’m not sure how

I’m normally the one with secrets
and shock factor news
but you show up with a wedding ring
and an underground marriage
your parents don’t even know about

Perhaps my teenage pregnancy
is the only thing that could top that
but it’s not a competition
on who has the better secrets

We both have new demons
acquired in the years spent apart
but despite the distance
and my latest six-month silence
when I call you it’s like time disappears
and we pick up where me left off
like there was never any time
or distance between us at all

We’re not the same people
but it doesn’t seem to matter
when everyone else drifted
into awkward conversations
you stayed to make me laugh
like you’ve almost always done

High school science lab
your shadow hiding in the corner
I knew we were going to be friends  

© Indie Adams 2016