I wondered, as a child, where they all were,
my parents’ friends absent from our home.
Why did they not have friends like me,
why were they instead all oddly alone?

And now I sit and count the grand old days,
where this and that happened, and some more,
but I’m visited by pregnant silences often now,
no one knocking on my willing front door.

I hear from them, still, yes, at times —
jobs, kids, trips, all manner of fun.
Everyone spiraling away into darkness,
calling that phase over and done.

And we gather our grief, our youthful losses,
exchanging them for mortgages and sex,
becoming the quiet adults we all saw,
and wondering what life will bring to us next.