“She stole my bestie”

Well, hell—
      With Sharesa’s cancellation
      Fariba was substitute armor,

      company that keeps a little distance
      from becoming the only thing in the room
      when Mari and B and I are around each other,

      and all the things that don’t get to happen…
                          keep their good manners.

A major conflict of… everything,
  dressed for an ordinary afternoon,
  looking, from the outside,
  like friends spending time with friends—

  and here was Mari,
      finding a thief
      in the very thing
      that let me be around her.

Being careful can look so much like not caring,
      and the space I leave between her and me

      had somehow become the place she’d lost me.

I’d hoped she knew
    why I wore the armor.