50

She reaches out to me, in the blue/light-blue static
of our everydays
to say: Hello. I have been reading your words.

And I laugh to myself at seven thirty,
'cos it made the morning less harsh. Refreshing

to say the least. She wonders if I remember her:
We haven't spoken in ages. Visiting her at school
plays doesn't seem that long ago.

I was rewarded with a peck on the cheek. A pink lemonade
that made me ill when I drank it too fast. But now,
after years, she still digs my format.

Punctuation and subject matter. Likens me to a Salinger
and believes I will die alone in the woods.

In a good way, though.

The best way possible. She says my words are those of insomniacs,
over-tired underclassmen who ache for meaning
and a sense of desperate hope. We are realists

and we still exist. She does the work I have not,
my errant PR girl. And when I'm rich and superfly,
she will get her 15%.