Paradise Lost Alice and I used to go to the old cemetary And lie down on the old tombs at dusk To listen for the ghosts we knew were there And wait to see the old soldiers march Through the shadows, between the headstones Never speaking, but only the crunch and rustle Of their boots on leaves deader than they were, While the wysteria waved and scented the air. Alice and I used to sit in her front yard When the sun was setting and the evenings were warm And talk of boys and God and parents and hurts That no one but other sixteen-year olds could feel And wait for supper to be done so we could miss it Then run laughing to the car to go to Krystal For burgers and fries because her mother couldn't cook And bring back ice cream to apologize for being rude. Alice and I used to laugh and giggle and whisper At sleepovers, sharing the single bed so no one could hear Our secrets, or see our touches, or know we practiced Kissing and felt exhilarated and ashamed all at once So that anger and shyness followed for a few days Until friendship reminded us that practicing was better Than being guilty of kissing boys which our parents Would never have approved of because we were too young. Alice and I used to sit on the benches in the schoolyard With our one or two friends and pretend we were the cool ones We were the clique no one could join because we were too cool And too proud and too much more than all the others Who never looked at us or talked with us or thought of us much at all. Cruelty was the thing that everyone ignored and all of us knew, Among the broken families and fragile egos that didn't recognize The rich from the poor, the good from the bad, the desperate from the lonely. Alice and I parted company, when I went off to school And she could only afford to stay at home and go to state, While I found other friends and new disasters that became my life As growing up became something I could no longer put off. And when I finally came home she was gone and away. Her old house sold, the school a different place and only the cemetery Remained the same, but emptier now and quiet For there are no ghosts around when there is no one to listen or to see them. Alice and I met, years ago, by accident, working for the same place Seeing the world through different eyes, although we saw each other the same Only we were different: changed in time, changed by the wars Fought within ourselves while we sought to find ourselves And gave up the parts of ourselves that had never fit in anywhere Except with each other and for each other and because of each other. Without each other, those things had faded and dried, like arrangements Of a spring bouquet or our first corsage, stuck in a box to save forever. Alice and I were only ever best friends in my memories, in hers And never meant to be forever, no matter the promises or the secrets we shared. Alice and I were never the same person, only shadows of each other, Ghosts of the women we would grow to be, and never really reflections Of the girls we were, when prophecy was more than wishes and less than dreams. Alice and I were friends only when what was inside was too big for us to hold And needed a reservoir that could be emptied by talking of nothing of importance That still was spoken in the passionate words of girls and summers and drama Alice and I touched each other's lives in brief and in passing Decades ago we might have kept in touch with notes and cards At Christmas, if no other time and tried to hold onto our youth In words and remembrances, rather than regrets and silence. But I wonder if this is not better, for Alice will always be As I remember her, laughing and serious as we set the tape recorder On the stone and lay down, hushing each other and giggling Knowing the ghosts on the tape were laughing at us, and we at them.

all poems © 2004 v.a.watts