For those few

People in your life come and go
some more like tickets that get validated and left behind
some kind of like souvenirs from a long-lost land
and some that stick like lint in the static of the moment
and yet others that trail like the toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

But some choose to stay -
the umbrellas that keep you dry on rainy days
the comfortable old T-shirts that you can't do without
the warmth of sunlight, even in the middle of winter.

This is for those who stayed.
This is for those who didn't look the other way
when it was all you could do to keep your pieces together.
This is for those who cheered you across stages:
graduation, convocation -
teenage angst, quarter-life crises, love and loss -
and for those who had the time to sit in the silence
of your pain,
or say the right thing as you frayed into tangled strings
and confused nothings.

This is for those called friends.
Those who take the beginning
and carry it to the end.
They may, sometimes, come and go -
but spent a lot more time staying and believing and giving
that their goodbyes are more like see-you-laters
and their hellos more like I know you, I see you, you matter.
Those who don't just come
and go.
But also come back
and stay.