- Katherine Qiao
OVER THESE YEARS, OUR FRIENDS
FLASH FICTION
Best Friends Don’t Lie
Our hesitations do.
I hope
Let me spell it out,
Carefully, graciously, I promise I’m not being sarcastic for once
You’re my best friend, I love you, let’s hang out
Things To Know Before You Call Me Your Best Friend
My prerequisites
Are that we can talk
About
Anything
Take my tantrums with a pill.
I’m so sorry.
My prerequisites
Are that you don’t
Throw the memories all back at me
One day
Charred and vengeful.
Because I thought
If I broke down in your presence
You’d know
Better than most
Why
Not make me
Thin my lips together in disappointment,
Anger that carries the weight of where tears would’ve happened instead,
And think,
Freaking,
Again?
Late Night Conversations
We don’t talk anymore
But I have the book
That we giggled over as small spindly middle schoolers
Hiding under the covers
Phones pressed under layers of blankets
Whispering over how the main character was stupid
And the hot guy sitting in the apple of her eye
Was even more
On my bookshelf still
Even after all these years
If you dial at 2 AM
I’m tired and cranky and maybe being a stupid adult (not) and bitchy and barb-tongued -
But what’s up?
When Things Go Wrong
The periphery talks.
They know.
They take sides.
He’s mad because she ignored him for a day.
He got sensitive again.
When someone calls you their best friend,
You can’t exactly say...no.
Right?
Who’s trying harder?
Of Timeless Conversations
We call these conversations gossip
Because they paint winding paths, full of muffled snickers and blood drawn and whispers
From topic to topic to -
HEY wait a minute.
OMG.
No that’s a bad idea.
...okay let’s do it anyways.
Whoa.
I gotta hear more.
The periphery asks,
Wow, those are huge message bubbles.
Really?
I didn’t notice.
Big as the memories
And as long as time spent.
Worth it.
I’ll be the first to ride your motorcycle.
Laugh at my stupidity enough that I’ll laugh with you.
Not at you.
Executive Decisions
Video call while we go about our mundane, probably separate lives still
Tapping these keys and bitching about procrastination and essays and everything in between.
Don’t worry, they’re all just special snowflakes
You wrote something new? YES. Let me read it now
...hey.
Important question.
What should I eat for dinner?
Dude. Seriously?
...Yes.
Sushi.
Kay.
May We Become Adults One Day We dream, out loud How we’ll all live together in a big house in Seattle Living out loud, our dreams Unrestricted by the titles scripted in our school certificates Pushed to the limit by my and your encouraging words of “Don’t you dare say, ‘I can’t do it’”
Because you can.
Best Friends Don’t Forget I hope you remember that one time we jumped out of a car into that great big intersection Next to a mall that even my
professors know of, two cities away On a day we were so rebellious and skipped school for the first time in 12 years
Three years later we laugh.
But no one else can. It’s our stupidity to own.
I hope you remember my pain
And yet, still, keep listening
I hope you remember when I came to your dorm at 2 AM, blubbering about shitty people
And my dumb narrative of how equally shitty I am, have been, always will be Shut up. Pat head awkwardly. Now here is where you’re wrong. Point A, point B, point C...which leads back to point A anyways.
Hey! You’re smiling again.
Published In:
Blueprint Literary Magazine Issue 7, April 2018