Ready or not

Another July has nearly passed without

me knowing you. We continue to skirt

around the edges of memory

and I lose track of who is "It" this time and

who needs to keep running and hiding.

Is it my turn to seek?

I'm so bad at hiding.

(or maybe it is my secret hope that you find me)

~

I've played this game long enough

to realize that there will never be

an end that each of us is happy with.

But I'm so good at pretending that

I start to believe maybe this last

game will be the one that

brings us back home as friends.

The kind who talk.

~

Perhaps you've just exchanged one

game for another.

Was it ever real for you?

Or maybe you aren't playing at all

and it is me on the other side of the

playground. A younger, naive version

of myself, a trail of giggles echoing

in her absence.

Perhaps this silence is my own reflection

saying that it is time to return home without you.

Ready or not.

Ready or not.

Ready or not.

~~~