For lack of empathy

I don’t know why, but fifty years on I thought of you,

tall lanky friend of my youth, we used to sometimes talk

walking home from high school; me bombastic and loud,

all full of myself; you quiet, deferential and shy.

We never became close; you a confirmed loner

me a loner, hidden beneath layers of braggadocio.

Sometime during college, I heard you were gone;

rumors of suicide, but I was never sure and afraid to ask.

I didn’t know how to listen to what you were trying to say

about yourself, about us, about the world we were stepping into,

but after all these years, I remember you and wish

I had been a better human, and a better friend.

4-23-23