Farewell Poem

I drive back to the office this evening, and on my way I pass Logan Elementary. I have parked less than half a block away from this school every day for the last 19 years, and each day the building seems to have aged a little more. (I wonder if I have, too? Nah!) I take a hard, long look at the school and consider pulling over and snapping a few photos of the ivy-covered steps and bricks and the boarded-up windows, especially the steps, but I decide not to. After all, I never went to school here, and I can remember being inside this place only one time, despite being so close to it for so long.

The last time I called you, I was sitting on the steps of Main Street School just past midnight one Friday in 2003. My grandmother had died two mornings before, and you had shown up unexpectedly to offer your condolences and eventually to tell me those oh-so-familiar words: “Call me.” You gave me your newest number, and in my haste to scribble it down, I barely noticed that you had somehow included an extra numeral ... and so, after waiting until everyone else was asleep and walking up to the school so I could have complete privacy, I could not get through to you. I tried almost every possible combination, but I could not reach you.

I was surprised and pleased enough, actually, that you had found me to tell me you were sorry about my grandma. I had written about her death in a journal entry on some now long-forgotten forum; still, I had no idea you even knew — even though you had told me, not all that long ago, that reading my “online shit” reminded you of “At My Most Beautiful” song by REM: “you always listen carefully / to awkward rhymes / you always say your name / like I wouldn’t know it’s you ...”

... at your most beautiful.

The next time you called me was right before 10 o’clock on my 40th birthday. Sometime during the conversation, you told me you might need to lean on me over the next few weeks/months, and I assured you that I would be there for you. (“You might not know it to look at me,” I told you, “but I can be a really excellent listener when I want to.”) I also tried to apologize, using actual spoken words for the first time since then, but you quickly changed the subject and I never tried again.

You called me once more after that, and even though we’ve had each other’s number for more than a year, there have been no more phone calls; I vowed not to and you simply don’t. There are countless text messages and random photos from you just waiting to be deleted from my phone, now, and just yesterday I got a reminder that your birthday is next week.

I already knew this, of course: The first time you called me, I was a bit mortified because your voice sounded like that of a 12-year-old. Immediately, I asked you how old you were, and you told me. “What year were you born?” I asked, still not quite believing you, and without hesitation, you replied, “I was born at six minutes after midnight on July 6, 1968.”

I e-mailed you the night I got the reminder because I knew that once July got here, I didn’t want to think about you anymore.

I’m hanging up now, and I want you to tell me goodbye.