I consider myself a fairly sentimental guy.
I latch myself onto people,
but in the most non-clinging way possible.
However, life tends to separate what they feel must be separated.
But friends, though? Come on now, that's just grimy.
Instance 1 - The First Best Friend
A classic story. Well, of sorts.
We met in kindergarten, you see.
Me black, he Portuguese,
though I thought he meant Puerto Rican for some reason.
Both smart kids.
Both terrible at sports.
Well, I was at least.
This is the kid who I hung out with in the back when we were in gym playing dodgeball pretending to be old maids in WWII attempting to avoid being bombed.
Oh, how often we made it to the end.
Such vivid imaginations we had.
We even became archeologists in 3rd grade,
digging holes in the asphalt,
attempting to find fossils,
though we only found precious rocks.
I held onto that box of rocks for a good 3 or 4 years, too.
He knew my mom and older sister.
I knew his parents and older sister.
What a fun family, very embracing.
How I adored his mother's accent.
This is the kid who introduced me to curse words in the 3rd grade
which he had learned from his sister.
Oh, the joys we had.
Oh, the times we spent together.
A glorious five years.
And then, my mom insisted on me transferring.
I suppose she didn't like St. Rose anymore.
He sent me a letter once.
It was cute. I wrote back.
That was it.
We semi-found each other again around 8th grade,
but it wasn't the same.
It seemed different.
It became even more appearant once we entered high school.
Oddly enough, the two schools were literally right next to each other.
But we never chilled with each other.
We had become too different.
I dropped by his house unannouced one day, as I do,
only to find his mother.
We had a good talk but I still missed my old best pal.
Are we to never again be as cool as we once were?
Is it really so hard to attempt a conversation on FB,
even if forced?
One can only stop themselves from producing the awkward moment.
And to think, he had a little sugar in his tank too.
What are the odds?
Instance 2 - The Friend from Forever Ago
I met this fellow when my father moved back to his mother's apartment building,
when the fellow who lived in the same building moved away,
when I hung with the friend of the friend who was the young uncle of my soon to be best friend.
I was bout 7.
He must have been bout 5 or 6.
Yet, it worked.
I don't even remember how I became his friend and not his young uncle's.
It's fuzzy.
But we spent many of those every other weekends playing video games,
little time spent with my father, obviously.
I remember this one time, he was gettin on my nerves as his family was bring in groceries,
so I slapped him upside his head. [I had always been his sidekick, in a way.]
Realizing his family was about, I proceeded to cry, fearing punishment.
But his family knew he was a little asshole, and could careless.
He never really got to know my family.
The time we spent together was always over his house,
with that house full of Jamiacians and half-Jamiacians.
MMmmm.... beef patties and plantians.
Anywho....
We grew up, and we stayed friends.
Around his freshman year in High school,
he started knockin boots.
And fie for shame, he got the scare.
You know... the scare a female can present.
Nothing came of it, luckily,
but his mom shipped him off to Florida the following year,
real sneaky too. He ain't even know he was stayin.
It was this year, my senior year,
that I figured out "who I was."
I had to tell him through text.
He was shocked but cool.
But I knew if we hadn't been homies for so long,
he woulda dropped me.
He's a typical nigga when it comes to things like that.
He returned back to the hood the year I left for college.
But we still keep in touch,
but very sparingly.
It used to be long text convos.
Now it's short little messages in between my breaks.
He's becoming more of the semi-jock, girl-havin, hood nigga.
I'm becoming more of the poetic, lookin-around, prep dude.
We're growing apart, and I feel it more each day that passes.
I've never brought it up.
But he did, kind of in passing.
"Yo, I gotta come down to see you,
we been fallin off," he said.
Hopefully this will happen
so that the day will never come
when we'll speak no more....
Instance 3 - The One That Still Remains
Have no fear, hope remains yet.
The year after I met my first best friend,
we added two more to the crew, a guy and a girl.
They were from the other kindergarten section.
Also very bright. Very close.
I happened to like the girl, and she liked me.
But she left after 2nd grade.
3rd grade, a new love interest arrived,
and she become part of the crew,
though she felt not the same about me.
We four stood at the top of our class.
Real examples. Little role models.
Everyone from K through 8th knew our names.
And then, you know what happened to me.
I saw not one of them.
Until....high school orientation rolled around.
And who do I see standing ten rows over put the other guy.
He was the same height as me in grammar school,
but he towered now.
Had put on some weight [fat] too, but it mattered not.
I was reunited with an old friend.
We talked again, but we did not hit it off again right away.
We were friends, but not tight tight, just like back in the day.
I had hit a bad patch in high school,
hung out with the wrong crowd... not really... just not totally focused.
I lost track, but around junior I remember I was a smart guy bout his paper stacks [test and essay scores in those days].
This is when we started to hang out more often.
We were great friends.
We went through our love/hate moments too.
Like the 1st one that comes to mind is when he got mad over some bullshit I did and didn't talk to me for a month.
The 2nd that comes to mind is when he left my ass at a highway McDonalds last year for spittin on his car by accident and not cleaning it up.
"That was a bitch move, _____!"
But we're past that and can laugh at it through one of the many Boondocks references we make.
Oh......... so many inside jokes, we have. Haha. A great guy.
We still talk, even though we go to different colleges.
It's kind of made us tighter, in a way yes, in a way no.
But we still hella tight.
I can see me and him bein cool well into our 30s or 40s,
long as he, or I, don't get into no more dumb ass fights.
[or make no more comments about having his ways with my momma... >.<] Haha.
I latch myself onto people,
but in the most non-clinging way possible.
However, life tends to separate what they feel must be separated.
But friends, though? Come on now, that's just grimy.
Instance 1 - The First Best Friend
A classic story. Well, of sorts.
We met in kindergarten, you see.
Me black, he Portuguese,
though I thought he meant Puerto Rican for some reason.
Both smart kids.
Both terrible at sports.
Well, I was at least.
This is the kid who I hung out with in the back when we were in gym playing dodgeball pretending to be old maids in WWII attempting to avoid being bombed.
Oh, how often we made it to the end.
Such vivid imaginations we had.
We even became archeologists in 3rd grade,
digging holes in the asphalt,
attempting to find fossils,
though we only found precious rocks.
I held onto that box of rocks for a good 3 or 4 years, too.
He knew my mom and older sister.
I knew his parents and older sister.
What a fun family, very embracing.
How I adored his mother's accent.
This is the kid who introduced me to curse words in the 3rd grade
which he had learned from his sister.
Oh, the joys we had.
Oh, the times we spent together.
A glorious five years.
And then, my mom insisted on me transferring.
I suppose she didn't like St. Rose anymore.
He sent me a letter once.
It was cute. I wrote back.
That was it.
We semi-found each other again around 8th grade,
but it wasn't the same.
It seemed different.
It became even more appearant once we entered high school.
Oddly enough, the two schools were literally right next to each other.
But we never chilled with each other.
We had become too different.
I dropped by his house unannouced one day, as I do,
only to find his mother.
We had a good talk but I still missed my old best pal.
Are we to never again be as cool as we once were?
Is it really so hard to attempt a conversation on FB,
even if forced?
One can only stop themselves from producing the awkward moment.
And to think, he had a little sugar in his tank too.
What are the odds?
Instance 2 - The Friend from Forever Ago
I met this fellow when my father moved back to his mother's apartment building,
when the fellow who lived in the same building moved away,
when I hung with the friend of the friend who was the young uncle of my soon to be best friend.
I was bout 7.
He must have been bout 5 or 6.
Yet, it worked.
I don't even remember how I became his friend and not his young uncle's.
It's fuzzy.
But we spent many of those every other weekends playing video games,
little time spent with my father, obviously.
I remember this one time, he was gettin on my nerves as his family was bring in groceries,
so I slapped him upside his head. [I had always been his sidekick, in a way.]
Realizing his family was about, I proceeded to cry, fearing punishment.
But his family knew he was a little asshole, and could careless.
He never really got to know my family.
The time we spent together was always over his house,
with that house full of Jamiacians and half-Jamiacians.
MMmmm.... beef patties and plantians.
Anywho....
We grew up, and we stayed friends.
Around his freshman year in High school,
he started knockin boots.
And fie for shame, he got the scare.
You know... the scare a female can present.
Nothing came of it, luckily,
but his mom shipped him off to Florida the following year,
real sneaky too. He ain't even know he was stayin.
It was this year, my senior year,
that I figured out "who I was."
I had to tell him through text.
He was shocked but cool.
But I knew if we hadn't been homies for so long,
he woulda dropped me.
He's a typical nigga when it comes to things like that.
He returned back to the hood the year I left for college.
But we still keep in touch,
but very sparingly.
It used to be long text convos.
Now it's short little messages in between my breaks.
He's becoming more of the semi-jock, girl-havin, hood nigga.
I'm becoming more of the poetic, lookin-around, prep dude.
We're growing apart, and I feel it more each day that passes.
I've never brought it up.
But he did, kind of in passing.
"Yo, I gotta come down to see you,
we been fallin off," he said.
Hopefully this will happen
so that the day will never come
when we'll speak no more....
Instance 3 - The One That Still Remains
Have no fear, hope remains yet.
The year after I met my first best friend,
we added two more to the crew, a guy and a girl.
They were from the other kindergarten section.
Also very bright. Very close.
I happened to like the girl, and she liked me.
But she left after 2nd grade.
3rd grade, a new love interest arrived,
and she become part of the crew,
though she felt not the same about me.
We four stood at the top of our class.
Real examples. Little role models.
Everyone from K through 8th knew our names.
And then, you know what happened to me.
I saw not one of them.
Until....high school orientation rolled around.
And who do I see standing ten rows over put the other guy.
He was the same height as me in grammar school,
but he towered now.
Had put on some weight [fat] too, but it mattered not.
I was reunited with an old friend.
We talked again, but we did not hit it off again right away.
We were friends, but not tight tight, just like back in the day.
I had hit a bad patch in high school,
hung out with the wrong crowd... not really... just not totally focused.
I lost track, but around junior I remember I was a smart guy bout his paper stacks [test and essay scores in those days].
This is when we started to hang out more often.
We were great friends.
We went through our love/hate moments too.
Like the 1st one that comes to mind is when he got mad over some bullshit I did and didn't talk to me for a month.
The 2nd that comes to mind is when he left my ass at a highway McDonalds last year for spittin on his car by accident and not cleaning it up.
"That was a bitch move, _____!"
But we're past that and can laugh at it through one of the many Boondocks references we make.
Oh......... so many inside jokes, we have. Haha. A great guy.
We still talk, even though we go to different colleges.
It's kind of made us tighter, in a way yes, in a way no.
But we still hella tight.
I can see me and him bein cool well into our 30s or 40s,
long as he, or I, don't get into no more dumb ass fights.
[or make no more comments about having his ways with my momma... >.<] Haha.
But, ey. What are else are good friends for?
"See, that's why I's fucks with you.
Cause niggas know how to keep a secret." Haha.
Thanks for the good and the bad, Snuffs.
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