Imaginary Friends

I knocked at the door of his imagination

Hoping to come in and play for a little while.

He always liked me the best ...

He had a lot of playmates,

but I was his favorite -

I was his friend.

It's been a long time since he smiled over a piece of string,

triumphantly held aloft on a wooden sword.

That was our standard - our flag.

But now it's just a memory,

lost in the shadows of time;

Like all of his childhood.

Crouched in a small corner, tucked into a ball

Are familiar memories of happy adventures.

His old baseball glove, coming unstitched;

He always blamed the glove

for missing the fly balls.

And his old cap rests there, too.

I was his confidante since before he could speak

He would tell me all of his heartfelt secrets

Trusting that I wouldn't breathe them to another

Single, solitary soul ... so long as we both lived -

and stayed the best of friends.

I've kept my end secret.

He told me once about the famous astronaut

Who circled the earth and the moon.

That, one day, would be him up there

Floating through ebon and starlight.

and I would go with him;

I believed him ... and still do.

In third grade he lost a tooth in a fistfight

With the bully of the old schoolyard.

I taught him how to fight, you see.

He came home and cried and cried -

told me to go away.

Then he ripped down the fingerpaints of me.

I've always been with him, through trial and calm;

He's made a name for himself in the world out there.

I've even caught him looking at me a time or two

As he walks past the old ballpark

where we used to dream

And make plans for the future we had ...

I knocked at the door of his imagination,

Once more, for the thousandth time, again.

He'll open up soon, maybe he just didn't hear

Me waiting here outside ... knock, knock ...

"Who's there?", he'll say.

It's lonely Me, your Imaginary Friend.