Etched

I remember your bed,
how you were sick and I came over,
we were already old schoolmate friends by then,
the tests of puberty still ahead of us but the assurance of delinquency alive in our blood,
I remember bouncing down the stairs to your basement bedroom, waiting for the soft blue glow that flooded your room to encompass me.
I remember seeing you sprawled across the mattress groaning
I remember you blinking from fever, leaning up in bed, propped up on your arm.

You lifted your leg, “I have to fart”
right before you shit all inside your pants.

I’m sorry.
I know it was terrible and you were embarassed,
but it’s a moment that stuck with me.
Your tears of embarassment and frustration,
My tears of true human laughter,
something that I can’t call forth as easily now.

A moment burned forever into my mind.
something that has stood the test of time.