Yearbook Message

I skimmed through glossy pages of posed smiles
Slopping scrawling the same chummy message:
"It was so nice getting to know you in art class!
Good luck on your finals! Have a great summer!"
A lie,
For all I gathered over the year
Was that you loathe the color orange.
In that yearbook message,
I should have confessed the truth,
That we, just like everyone else,
Were too wrapped up in ourselves
And in trying to be "cool"
To concern ourselves with others.

These are the words I should have written:
"Hello, stranger, for that is what you are.
I'm sorry that I listened to you without really hearing what you said.
I'm sorry for speaking so many idle words, not measuring their worth.
I regret I bore a mask
and that I didn't even try to see past the one that you, too, had created.
You and I could have been so close.
We could have learned so much from each other.
if only we had dared to expose our carefully hidden faults
and revealed our secret fears and aspirations.
But no, we carried on in our assigned roles, never veering from a prewritten script.
And for that, I lost a potential friend.

Sincerely,
Another Stranger"

If
I had had the courage.

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