I Released Her Into the Wind

We became friends before she lost herself Growing up together, we loved many of the same things As a young wife, in an abusive situation, she had reinvented herself A fearful shadow, hypervigilant. She had been opinionated and self-assured. That person was dead; gone, buried, her ashes blown. I offered to pay for her therapy. She smiled but did not reply. She flinched a bit when I persisted, so I stopped. She followed me around for a year or two Doing what I was doing, saying what she thought I wanted her to say I released her into the wind, hoping she could rediscover herself I told her to come back when she remembered who she used to be.