The tear-stricken girl 

Sniffs and takes the chair next to me.

I fish a pack of tissues out of my backpack and offer one to her.

I want to ask her

What made you this way?

So broken, so excruciatingly in pain?

But the most troubling of it all is

I was her. I am her.

I want to ask her

Who made you this way?

They stand a hundred miles tall

It feels as if they might swallow you up and

All you wanted was to reach as high as them

Past the stars and the moon

And play with them

And love them

And be loved by them

And feel wanted by them

You had wanted to belong

And that had once been achieved

But then you fell off the cliff

And no one came to rescue you.

Most of all

I want to tell her

How strongly I feel

I feel that there was a time

When we were not strangers.

But I say nothing

As she reaches for the tissue.

“Thanks.”