The best parts

The best part of the day

was walking you home from school.

I was again too scared today

to jump into the pool –

every pupil mocked and riled,

except you who smiled.

You knew all about my woes

and I knew all about yours.

The best part in high school

was when I held your hand awhile.

I told you to stay cool

and made sure no one would rile.

Of course you never knew that:

you’d have hated and loved it.

We always stayed together

till we were called for dinner.

The best part of us through college

is that, though we met less often

because we had taken different subjects

and had fewer friends in common,

we still hung out in malls and called

and wrote letters as in days of old.

Our dads still told us they’d met one another,

And we’d say we’d plans to meet, always later.

The best part starting our new jobs

and had gone each on each coast,

we still emailed our laughs and sobs

and texted – yet started to ghost –

the other's voice lost its familiar sounds

but still we proffered to be best friends.

We weren't worried by time and space,

we had always been outside any race.

Then we had other best parts of days,

we dated and got married and had children,

we gave middle names in lieu of praise

but hushed why we chose these to christen

our kids. We tried to call but the number was void,

and emails straight to spams were destroyed.

Certainly we did dream of one another,

yet at dawn our brains didn't seem to bother.

So when we finally replied to a stray email

we decided to meet in person;

we told and listened to each other's tale

of betrayal, divorce, abortion.

Yet the worse was to come, because cancer

was eating one of us, the other anger.

This wasn't a best part in our life, we thought,

trying to ignore the knot in our throat.

But we were together, nothing else mattered.

We reminisced our best parts,

glued back sounds which had scattered;

and while we opened up our hearts

we sensed we had missed something important,

something which had always remained dormant.

It was meaningless now to resist

so we faced one another and kissed.