They name disorders after people like us.

The last time was at a show
we both assumed we'd attend.
I hoped, you dreaded.
Secretly.

A band we loved that you got me into.
A band whose love I've spread since.
A love I haven't quite.

We faked smiles.
We forced questions, answers.
We forged our way through the crowd
in that dark room like we used to years back
even the night we met on that checkered floor.
This time I was old enough to buy you a drink.

The Canadian Club had hit me hard.
The goofy grin helped mask the hidden pain.
That and the nostalgia, the strained lyrics and lines.
I confess that I think I touched your hair
while you were standing in front of me
watching Tim drunker than us on that stage.
I thought that you touched me back at some point
maybe a hug, maybe a mid-sentence arm-grab.
I probably made it up.
Me or the whiskey.

They played the classic Martyr as I played mine.
The one about being "at my worst when I'm at my best"
is playing now, on repeat for the duration of this plea.
When the horn section comes in I crumble.
I remember catching your eye
when we heard it for the first time that night.
The rest of the phrases, the climax
the painfully premature ending: it's almost too perfect.
Most things in your Chapter were, though.

We screamed along to the words we knew
and faked the ones we didn't.
What else can they ask for?

That poem on love and loss and "never at all"...
It's no secret where I stand on it.