I traverse petals in the memory 
      Of my best friends.


The weight of fondness 
-- a forgotten friendship --
is too burdensome to keep 
it attached to the vine of
   your remembrance
     
      TO REACH OUT. 


      TO REACH IN 
and collect call any feeling towards
          me 
would be like a tardigrade 
stretching in the cosmos 
      TO REACH OUT 
and grasp the Atlas comet
at just the moment it passes
          me 
and turn its flame 
until its light 
ignites your impulse 
      TO REACH IN
and hear how I have been 
    pushing harder than an 
 Anadromous upstream, 
      TO REACH OUT
      of my habitat,
    the mundane sea bed of 

   "You know who I haven't 
         heard from in a while?"
    I wonder how -- is doing? 

...if only 
      TO REACH IN
the rolodex of school dances
      and 
lunchtime food fights
      and 
"She gave me a 97, what you get?"
      and 

"WOW!!!!"  

"I'm glad I had the confidence 
      TO REACH OUT
to your cousin so she could be
my date on prom..." 

            This
            Is 
            The 
            Evening
      TO REACH IN
            Your Pit
            Of Depression
      TO REACH OUT
        And tell 
          me 

You still think about that time we shared McDonald's fries after graduation and talked
      
      FOR FOUR HOURS

about our dreams and aspirations, and what car we planned on buying when we got our first check from that new job you never actually got because you passed away in your apartment the year I graduated. Your mother told me your little brother was acting oddly distant and to give him some love at the funeral. And so I did. I gave him a gospel tract, and he almost sneered at me. It wasn't the right time, I'm the idiot, too foolish to have social emotional intelligence, but I wish I got his number and took the time 
 
      TO REACH OUT

 The number you have dialed, 
 904-555-1817, is disconnected...