Reid@YWP

The meeting room is filled with noise. People talking and laughing as they greet their friends. This is the first time I have ever been early for a meeting, and it’s not nearly as fulfilling as I anticipated.

Have you ever met someone who truly feels like your other half? Who completes you? Not even romantically, I mean even a friend who mirrors your soul, reflecting back the sweetest parts. Well, I met one of these people last spring.

It sounded like the popping of a champagne bottle. 

Come climb the willow tree,

up the weeping branches,

Claudio, from that play we read

years ago in school,

he climbed the willow tree

to make a garland for himself,

we try to sleep in over break

because there's nothing left to do until December anyways

and it won't really work because dawn always opens my blinds

and their cat gets the zoomies at 6 but

I didn’t get out of bed this morning for twenty minutes

Lying in the dark in hopeful ignorance

Then I see my mother in the hall and I’m six years old again —

She has bad news —