At your high school graduation you pause on the podium,
valedictorian of your senior class, the lights encircling your hair
in golden gossamer. You do not know what to say here,
in this silence, between the pitfalls and the footsteps, the single mothers
with their three-year-old daughters shrieking in the back of the room.
Over 300 anxious faces stare out at you, the sweet bitter taste
of sweat pouring from so many bodies packed together
like icebergs drifting on the open sea.
There will be a time and place for everything,
but never a time to say This year I learned I was not invincible,
or to tell the tale of how a freshman girl scrawled
the words This is a tragedy, clear and proud
on the back of the bathroom stall door,
and you replaced it with But all love stories are.
So many milk cartons have been opened for this,
so many pop quizzes taken and failed, so many
teachers who doubted your worth
only because you raised your hand an average
of once a year.
Everything leads up to this moment, to the hushed atmosphere
of the room, so quiet a moth could land twice, three times
and every touch of its feet on the ground
could be heard clear as a bell.
You need to tell everyone in this crowd, daughters and friends
and brothers and lovers, all the teachers and student teachers,
that you will miss them, no matter what happened between you.
But you cannot fathom the words.
So instead, you settle on
I’ll see you soon.