For S.K.

Sometimes our conversations read 

like letters I’d never send,

a depository for all the unfiltered sadness 

that weighs down my mind -

those trains of thought so unkempt and dangerous,

even I don’t want to board them.

The comfort lies in knowing that when we talk it through,

making what sense we can of confusion,

after my tears punctuate the postscript,

you’ll fold it all up, place it neatly into an envelope,

and file it away in the box labeled "she’s-better-than-that."

You told me once that I am your conscience,

and I knew then that I’d never do our friendship more justice,

not if I wrote page after page on all the ways you’ve saved me.

Here’s the secret: you are my conscience, too. 

How beautiful, to know that my broken inner voice 

no longer must be finite judge and jury.