paper airplanes

i remember standing on the back porch
and reaching my arm back as far as i could
before springing it forward with force
and sending the paper contraption into the air.

my friend and i would lean over the porch rails
and try to make it over the fence in his backyard,
but we never got halfway there,
even after trying several times.

his airplanes looked different than mine,
and i realize now there wasn't a simple reason
to explain why, when thrown at the same time,
mine would always go farther than his.

standing next to my best friend on his porch,
i could have never known then, throwing paper around,
that the distance between our airplanes
was but a precursor to our future apart.