It doesn't have to change.

Chels and I used to shove our bodies close
in the large bed upstairs
where she used to live in the country.
We'd stack a plate full of salami and wheat thins
and extra sharp cheddar
sometimes we'd even sneak a bottle of Smirnoff
and we would share it.
We would whisper secrets into the icy air
our breaths in small white clouds before us.
She would talk about the boy with golden skin
and ocean blue eyes
and I would speak of the boy with the chin
that split in the middle.
We often times would pull out our tired journals
pages full of ink  and stories
of snapshots of our lives, written in words,
and we would trade them.
I would get a chance to
dive into the writings of chelsea m. gentry
and she would read mine, her lips moving, her eyes working her way
down the page.
[it has always been a safe place to share.]

It's 9 years later
and our bodies are shoved up against
different bodies altogether.
We've got men now, who we call husbands
and we no longer talk about boys,
but how to be wives to these two men that belong to us.
Chelsea learns how to exchange soft answers
for the smell of lingering socks
I am learning how to raise two miniature humans
and we are no longer little girls.

We meet in between work, house cleaning, and wifehood
at the local coffee shop.
Chelsea gets a mocha and I a hot chocolate.
Time returns to the moments we shared our secret love of writing
Chelsea pulls out her notebook
and my heart quickens,
excited to hear
the latest manuscript of Chelsea m. Garter.
She begins to read aloud
our heads shoved close together
as our eyes follow the words
down to
   the bottom
        of the
              page.