June 18, 2017

I wish you the best.

I wish you the best because you’re a person.

I wish you the best because I’m here, and you had some part in making me.

I wish you the best despite your worst moments.

I wish you the best because of how old you seemed at my age, and how young that seems now.

I wish you the best with allowances for youthful inexperience.

I wish you the best in memory of a big house, built by hand, unfilled with kids.

I wish you the best because you’ve worn through a lot of relationships, and there aren’t many people left still wishing you the best.

I wish you the best because it’s a hard world.

I wish you the best in the self-serving way that half of my blood is yours, and so wherever you end up seems, somehow, a glimpse at one of my own possible futures.

I wish you the best for my own sake.

I wish you the best while bracing for impact.

I wish you the best in hopes that a better way emerges, for both of us.

I wish you the best with the knowledge that there’s something about me that others cannot understand without knowing you.

I wish you the best from a city where no one knows you, and that part of me can remain obscured. Liberated from the association, but bound to always be a little misunderstood for its absence.

I wish you the best while browsing sheriff patrol logs for your name and calendars for your next court dates. Checking in. Making sure you’re still out there somewhere.

I wish you the best telepathically, without picking up a phone or writing a letter, because I’ve learned that engagement is seldom worth the heartache and manipulation.

I wish you the best in a way that greeting card sentiments cannot quite encapsulate.

I wish you the best on a bedrock of mistrust.

I wish you the best from a safe distance.

I wish you the best like a stranger.

But I do still wish you the best.