I often wonder, 
had it not come 21 years ago
on the eve of the day the world remembers her,
if I might have survived your choice to cut me off
and out of your heart so unexpectedly.
I wonder if I might have seen through the facade
of your imagined impasse and known it was
merely history repeating itself
so we might remember.

And when you delivered
first the plastic smile and cup of coffee
and next to cap the day of horrors the hellish memorandum
with its post-it note of feigned thanks for my "helpful note,"
which had been my heart and mind
splintering, not to mention my psyche, this fragile soul
that was barely making its sojourn here in that
or any other year... when that 
nail in the coffin came,

Might I have seen it was all the same
and found my way to convince her, my Innocence,
to stay? "I failed to see the tightrope I unwittingly walked."
These are the words I would write a decade later,
reflecting on your judgment of my
supposed expectation of something I thought I had.
I am still stunned by it, and all the accusations
and avoidance that followed.

To even think of what was done
in all the months after right up to that December day
is to dwell on crucifixion. But I am here to rise
and so I do each day, as I did so often then
only in need of a single friend. 
And the deer is here gazing upon me,
and the birds bring me their little gifts.
And in my heart I know I was right both times,
when I climbed the mountain and lost everything
and here, again, when once I called you friend.