Graduation by Edgar Kunz via Arcadia

When you showed up drunk as hell, humming
tunelessly to yourself, and slumped against
the auditorium’s faux-wood paneling, when
you fumbled in the pockets of your coat,
fished out a cigarette, brought it to your lips,
then, realizing for the first time where you were,
tossed it away and said Fuck it loud enough
that everyone turned in their seats and a friend
elbowed me and asked if I knew you, I shook
my head and spent the next hour wondering why
I was so glad you came. You, who slept
each night in your battered van, who skipped
AA meetings and lied to your sponsor, who still
called your ex-wife every day, restraining order
be damned. You shouldn’t have been there either:
a hundred yards was the agreement
after you gathered all the meds in the house
into a shoebox and threatened to kill yourself.
You had come regardless. You were there.
And I was there. And when I walked the stage
you hollered my name with a kind
of wild conviction, then said it a second time
less convinced, and I thought of that night,
when the cops came and you, unashamed
of the fuss you caused, of your desperate,
public struggle for happiness, kissed me
on the head – once, twice – and went quietly.