Friendship
circa 2026
You and I sit over plates of steak
and salmon discussing our hair, our clothes, others’ lives, anything without depth,
always consciously aware of the two young girls that hovered together in junior
high science class in our own bonded world, planning our future travels across
it.
Now getting on the highway frightens you.
The image of the discarded tampon, caked in black blood, the one floating in the puddle I stepped over walking across the Outback parking lot as I was coming to meet you intrudes my thoughts.
Because I’ve known you so long now. Before I started bleeding and after I stopped.
Still, we avoid looking up at the images of war on the screen above s as that would pull us into the polarizing hostilities that rest just beneath our surfaces, the tensions we work so hard to suppress, the ones you spewed upon me in a barrage of stinging curses the day I forgot to not speak.
Smiling facades that hide truths and our fucked-up dance is as exhaustive as a blood-letting.
You have a husband that waits for you at home, sitting in his lounger with an IV of hard right news flowing directly into his vein whose ideas you have disappeared into like a soft thick comforter so deep that sometimes I do not recognize you.
The abortion you hide from him. My own that we cannot discuss.
The things in your past that you pretend never existed are what gave you substance in my eyes. I still look for you. I miss you.
Things we cannot talk about. Topics we won’t broach.
There are so many now, increasing like the bombs that explode bright, but muted on the television hanging over our heads.
Ignored.
And our friendship rests vicariously on invisible eggshells that we both struggle not to crush, treading lightly and trying not to maim, clinging onto the ridiculous dream that one day we can walk freely with each other again.
And breathe together unguarded.
Makayla Carmichael graduated from Appalachian State University and has her masters from Seton Hall University. Since retiring as a CPA in 2022, she has pursued her lifelong interest in creative writing and has published short stories online with several publications, including D.U.M.B.O. Press, Mania Magazine, The Taborian, Daikaiju Zine, Nude Bruce Review, Eulogy Press, Blue Moon Review, Le Culturae and The Table Review. She won runner up for the 2026 NCLR Albright Creative Nonfiction Award. Makayla can be found on Instagram @makayla.kaykaywrites.