I wanna take us back to when we first met, because it’s important to me. Do you remember our first summer together? Endless wheat fields that stretched across the highway, the sun on our hair. Screaming Hamilton at the top of our lungs on those long car rides downtown. You told me over coffee once how you were glad we were best friends. That you couldn’t imagine being best friends with someone else. I died. No one had ever said that to me before. You know, I keep that picture frame you gave me on my shelf. I stare at it all the time and remember what you said. I’m really glad you kept yours too. 

You used to ask me questions about my childhood and I used to deflect them. Well I am ready to be honest now, although I have a feeling you kinda knew. The way we grew up, it was so different. I see your home, your family, the love here...the fullness of everything. Everything is so easily accessible to you. You grew up in a house on the hill, a view of the valley outside your door. 

Well right around the corner, down the hill, and past that dirt road and a creaky ass bridge are the straight slums. That’s what I am used to. Brown grass, trailer park, well water, broken home slums. Yeah...The concrete is so broken that pools of water form when it rains, the perfect watering holes for the stray cats. There is a hermit lady who lives on the corner lot singing to the moon, drunk off her ass. The kids bike around till morning, there's no rules. That’s where I grew up.