In this very moment
of this very day
of this very paragraph or two of the biography of my life,
I have finally decided to write that poem about you that I've been forming in my head
since the second grade,
in the very moment when I met you.
You, the closest thing I'll ever get to a personification of
one of the best parts of my childhood.
(And, I'm sorry that this poem took so long,
but you know how I procrastinate.)
And, while I may have forgotten your face,
and the rough draft of the poem I told myself I would write,
I have never forgotten about you and our friendship, Hannah.
You and I were the outcasts of second grade.
You were the foreign Asian girl-
whose exact race I cannot remember for the life of me-
who did not know hot to socialize yet.
And I....
Well, I was the ugly kid.
I was the miniature version of the third guy from the left on the evolutionary chart.
We were outcasts.
We had no one else to turn to.
Basically, the bonding was somewhat obligatory in the beginning,
but the resulting friendship is something I will never take for granted.
I taught you how to run, jump, and play kickball-
Things you probably don't do now-
and you taught me two things about life.
Number one, you taught me about patience.
You taught me that everything good in life is everything you have to wait for,
whether it be a long-term goal,
like my dream of being a psychiatrist,
or something more personal,
like love.
And, you have to work carefully for things to work out.
If you rush into things with someone, you're going to be torn up
when things don't turn out perfectly...
Number two...
(And you used to scold me whenever I laughed at people who said that)
You taught me something about
the finish line,
and that's how, sometimes,
you can never cross it,
no matter how fast you run.
And, when I got older, I called this
perfection.
And I still try to cross that line today,
even though you would tell me today that what I'm running towards
does not exist.
You would tell me to not run down the impossible track
with hurdles set up so high,
I can only hurt myself trying to overcome them.
And, the miraculous thing is that you taught me all of this
using on piece of paper,
cut neatly into a square and folded delicately
into an elegant paper crane.
I couldn't quickly fold that paper and expect a beautiful outcome.
And, no matter how long I creased and folded,
I would always be one millimeter from perfection,
but that was what made the things beautiful.
Hannah, in short, you taught me
that faults make something wonderful,
and that I never needed perfection.
In the end,
I was perfect in your eyes just by being myself.
And that was enough for me, Hannah.
If an angel finds me beautiful...
Well, I must be one heck of a chick, huh?





