If it is not enough to say: My best friend is dead. I miss him

by Brock William Storey

 

And what if I could barter for Skylar’s return? All my scrounged change
worth only seconds, a minute at most with him in that lost world
we shared—world under the world, reached through parking lot nights

smeared with liquor, street lamps benzo-blurred, slurred skies.
Our Indiana dilated, out of focus. If I can choose the seconds,
the most of a minute, give me a morning. Summer. Seventeen.

Skylar and I hungover. My childhood bedroom. The floor mattress.
Red banded accent wall. The blinds shuttered, slices of sky
pearling the arched window like the sun seen underwater. Give me

the slow rise to the body, its ache after night, its tremors,
its cold sweats. Not much. Just the moment my mother enters,
places a plate of grilled cheese between us. Silent but saying,

Eat. Live a little longer. And the sound of our chewing
like a prayer, a spell, a promise he could keep.

 

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