Bobby Bolt

FOR YOU, BLUE FRIEND

I hope where you are there’s a window. That the window frames a tree or two and the leaves haven’t spilled themselves all over the ground yet. I hope that you can walk past all that needs picking up to a waiting space. And it’s a place you actually want to be, like a bed or the crook of an arm attached to someone who loves you beyond all reason. A whole new season. I hope you know you’re welcome here. Always. Right here. Where nothing bad can happen because I’m in the driver’s seat and we aren’t really going anywhere. Maybe to get a glass of water. Maybe to ponder the weight of stars. Maybe, if you’re like me, you drift like a gull to warmer climes, to a time when you couldn’t comprehend all that’s got you down now. Or maybe you turn up the volume. Invite inside a crowd of sound. Find that song where the drums are crashing into each other by the end and the singer has screamed himself inside out. Shit, if you feel as bad as I do right now, then it’s good you’re here. I promise not to keep you too long. I promise you, there is no song that can fix your life, but there are many that could fill it to the brim. Could buoy you long enough to see the shoreline is only a short swim away. Let yourself be a shipwreck newly found, whose discovery is an event greater than all your splintered sides, your shattered mast, whatever you were when you were last whole. You are here. And what a wonder that you are. That you made it this far with all your treasures only to realize they’re best left to those who will follow. Those sails piercing the horizon, carried closer by currents of experience—your constant invitation to live.