“I don’t need you”
 was what you told me that day,
 and now I can confidently say
 that I don’t need you either
 
for the confrontations
 that choked the flow 
 of oxygen and thoughts
 to and from my core 
 to and from my mouth
 would leave my throat
 knotted into a noose
 never ending into nights
 after reticence

 restive, my body would
 invariably surge with violent
 and spiraling suspension
 my head and feet off the ground
 thrashing, flailing to come down
 while being bombarded by the racing
 “should haves” and “what ifs”

 I shouldn’t need you,
 and I don’t,
                      but I want you

 though there were five nights a year
 that I’d be paralyzed in fear
 we’d always come back, full circle,
 three hundred sixty days stronger
 with some change

 it may seem strange or
 possibly deranged but
 in spite of or maybe
 because of the pain
 that I want to say
 that I want you

 for what’s friendship
 without a little conflict

 to state our genuine state
 of mind, of self, no filter
 of course it’s because
 of how close we were 
 that some friction
 would occur

- or a lot 
 
but I never forgot
 the cold conversations
 smiling,
 in drive-through-wait-
 dine-in-outdoors at 3am or
 the car conversations
 crying,
 set to the cadence of 
 Freddie n’ Queen or
 the couch conversations
 laughing,
 while liberated with
 questionable substances
 
in fact,
 I cherish them
 
so cheers
 for all these years
 messily compressed into
 this reflection
 it is now my intention
 for reconnection
 and not to start all over
 
I’ve been able to live,
 and I really don’t need you,
 but, hopefully conveyed in
 my hokey-dorky way,
 I want you

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