Then the triple-base, the three sides
to the story. The two facing snakes
that speak to each other
across the past.

High school was over,
and who would want to go back?
But in our busy, self-recoiling lives
the third wheel turns us back
and an internet spot pages old
friends.

Cut off, your arm grew into its own
starfish, and you find, out
of that tiny sea, your friend
has become a starfish too.

You needed a Beowulf to slice off your arms,
to be faceless and bodiless and reach
past what everyone else had known,
only to grow everything back and reclaim
an identity to call your own.

In excavation, old photos define us,
yet we deny how we were.
We were never perfect.
We return to the source to fetch
the threads of our cocoons,
the molted shells of goofy haircuts
and all-important cliques.

High school was as far away as Africa,
as close as keys under your fingers.
Doors were closed on that life's chapter,
but windows were open.

Friend, each of us is five parts of ourselves:
Future, Past, Present, Private, Public,
seeking same. Classified
by who we were, who we are, who we want to be.

Turn and take the egg off your back.
Neither one came first
when one needs the other to exist,
to exist one needs the other.