When you say goodbye

I said goodbye today. I said goodbye and they call me crazy. "Why did you do that?" they say. "Why did you do that?"

I did it because I had to. I've been trying to say goodbye for months. But how do you say goodbye to the man who saves you over and over and over? Who brings you back to reality, or reality back to you?

He's the kind of guy who can charm your mother and horrify her at the same time. He is also the kind of guy who will go with you to IHOP at 1 in the morning, and take your film to get developed while you're in class. He is the kind of guy who will come get you when you slept in and were really grumpy and didn't really want to talk to him but were late to work anyway, who will smile as you look at yourself in his dark business man glasses and say "have a good day" even when you growl at him.

And I said goodbye. I said goodbye because I had to. I love him. I do. But love is not static. It isn't archaic. And it isn't permanent. Once it exists, it stays, if only in a memory in passing. A hastily scribbled note holds more of a human heart than a cold rock on a ring. "Hang in there" he wrote, and I hung. I hung for a long long long time. I hung and my arms hurt.

I fell. I fell and skinned my knees. I fell and skinned my knees and it hurts to get up. It hurts, and I'm getting up anyway. I looked up and saw him sitting over there. He fell too. He smiled sympathetically and then I got up. I stood, looking up at the tree and started to climb. When I looked down he was still sitting there, watching me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine" I answered. We looked at each other and I nodded. I could see in his hazel eyes and I could see it there. I knew. It was time. I needed to go. I needed to climb. I needed to climb and go. I reached and turned.

"Go ahead" he said. He sat back on his hands, idly crossing his ankles, resting. "Go ahead."

I nodded and looked up into the lofty branches. "Goodbye. Oh, and try and write some good poetry."

I could hear his laugh. It was the rich one that I loved. The real one. "Will do."

Goodbye.