You Thought Well of Me
I'm at home for summer after a year of butchering myself.
I've come home to be cherished and loved.
I reach home safely, in the arms of my mother,
I think, ah, you must have prayed well for me.
When we share pieces of our humble dessert,
My father cuts me a bigger piece,
Then he goes up to the roof to harvest dragon fruits for me.
I haven't seen the guys in what feels like decades.
We are sitting in a cafe and we enjoy too much.
Time slips away from us, like ribbons, like silk, like sand.
Our days blur into a messy abstract,
What feels like seconds are weeks that will never return.
But I am there in the moment, and they last forever.
The Jude to my Willem, or rather the Willem to my Jude,
Sits next to me; sandalwood with hints of vanilla.
Elongates our orders and makes us laugh,
He remembers most and spills compassion wherever he goes.
The smell of books and old cassette tapes,
Little obsessions for great writers, and even greater artists,
2 of his orders in front of him, 3 more waiting,
40 seconds until his phone buzzes and 5 till he leaves for a call.
A man of few words; a mystery to be solved.
But one thing so strikingly obvious,
His only fault;
an inability to be anything but of goodness.
If he is Willem, then I must take care of myself well,
And hang on to all the moments we have,
And love as much as he can no longer remember.
In front of me is Mordechai,
And not unlike himself, he is planning to get high tonight.
What life has in store for him, we are yet to learn,
But we all pray it is of love and everything good and only anything good.
Mordechai always does people right,
And if they do him wrong, he does more right to right out the wrongs.
Frustratingly good, worries are left for others around him,
It does not reach him and if it does, it quickly leaves.
Sometimes concious, but always capable,
Unafraid to make mistakes, persists but knows when to let things go.
A man with little foes, makes friends wherever he goes.
If Mordechai is alone, well the heavens must fall,
And if the heavens fall with Mordechai, well then us with them.
The oldest has gone to pick games for us,
Only he has the patience to teach us cards.
If someone has trouble,
He repeats the rules and helps one of us every round.
He keeps us entertained, random bursts of energy brimming from his smaller frame.
Though he has much to say, he discloses little of his growing pains.
The burden must be heavy on his back but we hear scraps of it.
What we hear most and far too well is his deep and infectious laughter.
It compensates for all the quiet laughing Mordechai does.
If I should need it, if he should require it,
If it is for anger or laughter,
There is space and there is an extra hour
For all of it to be said and heard till we feel better after.
An undying loyalty, a rarity, a treasure,
An irreplaceable presence and always the best banter.
Here in our humble space, our little corner,
Whether it's the newest cafe or our old favourite diner,
At 20 we are still kids, laughing too loud at our tables,
Pockets now a little heavier, plates now a little fuller,
Problems a little bigger and priorities increasing in number.
And as adults, we now spend our years apart,
Some few summer days together.
But everytime we come back,
When we talk and laugh,
Though I am a woman amongst men,
Here in our space,
I am just a human being, still just a human being.
And when summer rolls away and I must leave,
There's a safety net I can always fall back to,
A kind of reassurance so precious to me
A connection, a lifeline,
And some days a reason to live.
And it is that I can look at you
Even after all these years apart,
And know that you never stopped
And you have always thought well of me
And I of you.
~ N
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