Still There

Some friendships
do not live
in the everyday.

They stretch—
across years,
across oceans,
across the versions of us
that no longer exist
in quite the same way.

Formed in a season
that has passed,
held together
by something
that did not.

There were breaks—
things said,
things answered,
not always kindly.

And still,
somehow,
they remained.

Not constant.
Not loud.
But there.

We think of each other
in passing moments—
a memory surfacing
without warning,
a name held
just a little longer
than necessary.

And when we meet again,
time folds. The distance does not disappear,
but it loosens—
and we step back into something
that never quite left.