Dear John,                                                                                        

I saw something in your eyes tonight. It said if you asked me, my dear, I would stay with you. I can't ask that.

You see, once upon a time I had a friend. She had large freckles in a narrow face and her stringy blond hair was always tied up in a lanky ponytail. She wore conservative skirts. And I loved her. To me she was beautiful. On school days, I would pick her up from her apartment building each morning, her mom waving down to us from their second story bay window. We rode the tram together. Then we would sit side by side in our classroom all day long while teachers came and went. We ate our snacks together, yogurt or milk, a homemade sandwich perhaps, and from time to time a nut and honey pastry. We were inseparable. When fellow students or teachers invited either one of us to an extra-curricular event, they would as a matter of course invite the other one, too. She refused to go to parties, though, so I attended those on my own. When we were sixteen, I went away as an exchange student for a year. It was marvelous.

The following year when school started again, I took my old seat next to her. She stopped by our two-seater desk to solemnly tell me that, in my absence, she had made a new friend and wanted to now go sit with her. I looked up and saw her new best friend watch us from a short distance away.

"But you are my friend," I said. "You can't just leave me."

I don't remember what all we said that day. Did I say, no, you are mine? I must have been persuasive, for she stayed with me, and I watched her wanting to be elsewhere all year long. I got what I asked for. It was no good. It wasn't what I wanted. I sensed her loyal regret, and then my own regret for having asked for more than what was on offer. It would have been better to let her go.

Our time together was splendid, John. Go now. Let's not overstay desire while it turns into a sad limp of questionable triumph.

In the end, we all live lovely lives anyway.

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Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.net, grew up in Nürnberg, Germany. She lives and writes in Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment), where she has served as poet laureate. Her work is widely published in literary magazines. Recent book publications include poetry collections Wild Flowers (2022) and Circus Dancer (2025), as well as a short story collection, Dona Nobis Pacem (2021).

ART BY
William Wolak
Fleeting as the Reflection of Lightning
digital collage