Kindred Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

I'm sitting here
Missing him.
Those long talks
That went nowhere
But meant everything
On days when we had nothing to do
And everything to imagine
For his future.

So now he's gone
And I'm left remembering
My own youth
My own hubris,
The kind of fearlessness
That only someone who knows nothing
Could muster up.

And yet,
Missteps and blind leaps
Somehow led me here
Somewhat scarred.
Some days cynical
But somewhere I never imagined I'd be
When I was seventeen.