52 Hz.

picture and a poem, day two.

you're not ready to be his best friend.
you're not ready to have casual conversations
over drinks, over dinner,
because you'll spend most of the night
reminding yourself that it isn't anything special,
that everybody has to eat and drink.
you're not ready to watch him go on and on
about a topic you can't quite follow,
because all you can do is stare at his lips
and fight the urge to kiss
that one grey hair on his beard.
you're not ready for all these walls to come back up.
you share his dreams, after all you nearly cried last night
when you learned he got into his dream school.
you thought about his family, and how proud they must be.
you share his concerns, you found yourself thinking about his older brother
and how he might have taken the news,
if it made him reflect about his own place in life.
you never forgot how much he worries about his older brother.
you're not ready to act casual as he flirts with another girl
and you're not ready for stiff hugs goodbye.
you find yourself wishing for a drunken text,
and so you imagine calling him up out of the blue
just to talk about anything and nothing
that will keep him on the phone long enough
to remember what his voice sounds like
on the other end of the line.
you imagine the awkward silence,
and so you'd tell him about some article you read,
about 52 hertz, the loneliest whale in the world. 
the whale produces notes at a frequency unmatched by any other,
and so he sings and travels all alone.
you still remember the little things, like how whales are his favorite animal.
while he might not have thought you both shared the same frequency,
you still find yourself
humming the notes
to his song.