All my friends confuse the platonic.
Our ache for each other echoes.
All my friends are lonely, roommates
with their fears, practicing patience
til our fingers callous.
All my friends walk tall, yes.
We make more eye contact than necessary.
We want to see what is coming.
HAYLEE MILIKAN (they/them) is a poet and artist from Spokane, Washington. They are the winner of the 2022 Los Angeles Review Poetry Award, a Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing Director’s Fellow, and a finalist for Quarter After Eight’s inaugural chapbook competition. Other poems have been featured or are forthcoming in The Meadow, Vallum Contemporary Poetry, Digging Through the Fat, Susie Magazine, pioneertown., zines by Off Menu Press, and elsewhere. They live in Long Beach, California.