friends lost in time,
you've gone so far.
I used to be so upset
that you could go
leaving without us,
like we were nothing ever to you.
that hurt us the most.
Now we know it was
a temporal anomaly.
none of it has the weight of reality.
and so to those unreleased, we forgive you
though for the record
the worst version of me is
far better
than the worst version of you
and the lengths to which
versions of yourself
were willing to go
to be cruel and unusual.
To the pure version of you,
the collapsed position
the observed value.
congrats. I hope it's working out
joyfully for you, as fitting your dreams.
To those who never made it or were never real,
you're still real to us. We'll see you around.