Special Knowledge

Special Knowledge

Twenty years gone,

and we gathered, best friends,

every one of us.

The circle formed,

each story sharper than the last,

each memory a new gospel.

We listened, half-jealous,

half-hungry for pieces we’d never seen—

Kirk fishing with his uncle,

Kirk racing bikes, Kirk laughing

at jokes we’d never heard.

I wanted to say—

Kirk was my best friend,

the truest of them all.

But the truth was bigger than my claim,

bigger than my narrow grief.

He was all of ours,

bits of him buried in each story,

a gospel sung in parts.

I saw then—

to love is to listen,

to let the chorus swell,

to believe that no one owns

the whole song.