friends best

As we look at each other and smile, I click the last piece of the Lego set into place. It took us forever, but we did it. We never really talk much, but he’s always there for me—just him being there comforts me.

We keep playing for the rest of the day. Tag, hopscotch, hide-and-seek. We play for hours on end almost every single day. My parents never really liked him, but that doesn’t bother me, because he’s still my friend. Almost every day, we have the same routine, the same games, the same places, the same everything.

When I I wake up, I go to the same spot I expect to see him every morning, but this time, it’s different. I search everywhere, but I don’t see him anywhere. I call out, I try to tell him what games we’re going to play, but he’s gone. I run back into the house. “He’s gone, I don’t get it, what happened?” I sob to my mom.

So many thoughts run through my head, but I still don’t understand. All I hear is my parents’ voices muttering to each other, “It’s about time,” and, “I told you it was just a phase.”

I drop the Lego set on the ground, and it all falls apart.

Maybe I’ll build it again later.

I. The Myth

They will say that

The witch Medea, driven mad

In her fury at Jason’s betrayal, murdered, like Some uncontrolled wolf, her own Children.

I will know that

Holding their cherub faces between Your palms, you, Medea, thought, how Possibly you could let Hades touch them.