I was told not to credit the person who wrote this, because she hates this poem, so I will just say this is by one of my sisters. It’s from when I was living in Lebanon, and we sent each other poems. I love this poem, and I feel it now. Love you, sis.

Drive a couple miles up a highway filled with rain

and wish that you had the kissing disease.

For when times were simple

you thought you could beat them

who told you it had to end with bitter hearts.

And no relief.

I believed in you

because you knew that forgiveness was better than an upper hand

but slowly as we all turned like the tide

we turned on each other

Little thought to the bones of one another.

Now little is left and we’re left without goodness

but I wake up on nights when I’m sick in the throat

and flashes give me the beginning:

blankets around us then

the Berlin Wall around me now.

Maybe the world needs a closer proximity to each other

or is kissing the problem

— cause it makes us tired —

and I know you aren’t a liar

so tell me ’bout each arrow to my barricade,

each thought to each shot fired

though I’m clean now there’s a time I thought I wasn’t

and I am wounded now

— but in the first days we all wonder how–

would we ever lose friendship

For the times I would’ve risked having a kissing disease

For when times were simple

There was no thought to who

and no one to beat you

— but you were never told:

it has to end with bitter hearts.

And no relief