Message to a Long Lost Friend

I understand your silence and can forgive your unease. I know that the actions of my youth caused you great pain. I reach out, not to bring you back to that dark time, but instead to reach beyond it.

Every chance encounter, every acquaintance, becomes a part of our individual story. I know that I am a part of yours, just as you are a part of mine. I bear a permanent mark to remind me of that, in the most literal of ways, as do you.

There are facets of who I am that simply would not be, had I not met you, all of those years ago, and for the most part, I am glad to have each of them.

I am sorry to intrude upon your personal distance, but I just want to know where life took you, and who and what you have become. When I knew you, I had every intention of being a part of the rest of your story, but a few plot twists here and there, and I wrote myself out of the story.

I suppose it is somewhat selfish to assume that I have any right to know, but I guess on some level, some part of me feels a sense of responsibility in shaping at least the next road that you took, and I wonder what awaited you there. I hope whatever greeted you, whatever new adventure beckoned, led you somewhere wonderful, because it is what you deserved.

"A pistol shot at 5 o'clock

The bells of heaven ring
"Tell me what you done it for"
"No I won't tell you a thing

"Yesterday I begged you
before I hit the ground -
all I leave behind me
is only what I found

"If you can abide it
let the hurdy-gurdy play -
Stranger ones have come by here
before they flew away"

I will not condemn you
nor yet would I deny"
"I would ask the same of you
but failing will not die

"Take up your china doll
it's only fractured -
and just a little nervous
from the fall"
- R. Hunter