if we don't speak anymore

by

All I would ever want to hear is that you are in a good place. That is all. I want to know you like yourself when there is nobody else around to like yourself for. I want to know you've changed, but I don't need to know how or why or how much. I want to know that someone loves you. That is all. I want to know that you are looking forward to a hundred different things, scattered across amber open fields and hidden, waiting, in cashmere pockets you haven't pushed your hands deep into yet. I want to know you still haven't stopped dreaming. I want to know the tides of all these years have washed away the parts of yourself that never quite fit: I want to know that you are clean now, stripped of the dried blood on your elbows and the mud on your knees. I want to know that nothing that doesn't have to hurt, hurts. I want to know you can walk the streets at night without having to check every corner for danger; I want to know that you are safe—please be safe, always. I want to know you can still taste honey on your fingertips and milk straws at the back of your tongue, smell water lilies on the soft curve of your neck. I want to know you haven't stopped wishing on puddles and jumping over stars. I want to know you still like cherry cola, and libraries, and that first time a newborn puppy opens its eyes, and camping, and secrets. All I would ever want to hear is that you are no longer the person you used to be. That is all. Neither am I.