Heartpen: Poems of a Cardiac Quill

Academy

Aiden only briefly pondered asking Olivia Greene

to prom back when he and she were

in high school.

Long story short, friendship turned out

to be a more realistic pursuit

when it came to a girl ninety percent

of both the football and cricket teams were interested in.

So, now that Olivia is married and she and Aiden

have been graduated for years,

what is he doing back at his old stomping grounds?

Is he here to wallow?

He sees another guy about the school tennis courts.

Is that guy here to wallow too?

Does Aiden know the guy—a peer,

a battle buddy,

a comrade of salad days of yore that,

let's be honest,

were more awkward

than we make them out to be?

In any case,

Aiden decides to mosey over to the guy,

to chance a greeting.

The guy—whom Aiden positively doesn't know—

has two gloved hands in the chain links

of a rusty fence and

appears surprised

at being approached.

"Hullo there," says the gloved guy.

"Lots of memories, eh?" Aiden's hands,

unlike the other fellow's,

are gloveless,

because Aiden forgot his gloves

in June's car when she dropped him off.

Aiden's own vehicle,

the "Crudmobile,"

is being tinkered with

by some maintenance characters at the body shop

and at this point in his life,

he'd rather risk losing a couple fingers to frostbite

than phone his full-time pediatric assistant cousin

over a pair of mitts.

The gloved guy looks over the courts.

"Yeh. Lots of memories."

"You played?"

"Was awful."

"There's something about it

though, right?

Even if you had the worst time here,

you always get that

fuzzy feeling

when you come back and look."

"I think its because," says the guy in gloves,

"Youth is where then meets now."

Aiden's left brow raises a notch.

"That's deep, mate."

"Yeh?"

"Wanna grab lunch or something?"

The gloved guy lets out a breathy chuckle.

"You know what's funny?

I went here five years and can't say

I made a single friend,

and now, the first time I come back

to visit

two and a half decades later,

I'm invited to lunch."

The gloveless guy grins, offering a hand. "Aiden."

The gloved guy releases

one of the chain links

and leans into the handshake.

"Yo, Aiden. Bryce."