Tag Archives: Friends

Journal – Keeping Friends

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You always had friends, she says
Dismissively
But it makes me sad.

People love her.
Why doesn’t she have friends?
It’s not, as she attributes it, extroversion
Introverts make friends all the time.

I think it has more to do with forgiveness.
She can’t forgive a slight
imagined or otherwise.
When you imagine the best of people
You’re usually right.
When you imagine the worst of people
You’re usually right.

I can’t change her outlook.
I can’t teach her to forgive.
But if she can learn to forgive herself
She might learn to forgive others.
If she can learn to forgive others
She might be able to keep a friend.

Making friends is easy.
Keeping friends is hard.
I’ve won countless friends.
I have lost more friends than I’ve ever kept.
Some of them
For whatever reason
Stick.
Maybe they’re capable of forgiving my countless unconscious cruelties
My rough treatment
My tactlessness
Maybe they consider what I can give
to be worth what I take.
Maybe they’re able to accept my forgiveness
for the things they think they’ve done.

My friendships have been tried.
So many times
I don’t know what happened
but I lose them anyway.
I follow them until I realize
They’re not looking back at me.
This too, I must forgive.
And myself
For how I must have hurt them
Though I don’t know what it was.

Maybe no one did anything wrong.
Maybe it’s just nature
People come and go
Friendships rise and fall
with the changing tides.
Maybe I need more flexibility.

This is why I consider a friendship that sticks
Incredibly valuable.
Whatever alchemy
Has bonded us together
I refuse to let fall by the wayside.
Fight, drama, damage, conflict in values

I never considered myself loyal.
Loyalty always implied to me
That I would take their side no matter what.
That’s not what I do.
I consider rights and wrongs
According to my own ethics.
I try to make peace
Between them and their enemies
it’s the forgiveness thing again.
But I do love them no matter what.
Maybe that’s what loyalty really is.

Look at how good I make myself sound.
Somewhere in here is a lie
Somewhere in here is denial
That’s what it is to be human
We tell stories
We tell lies
even to ourselves.
I am not seeing something.
Maybe by love I am enacting hate,
My loyalty is fickleness,
My ethics are cold,
And my forgiveness is judgment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the steadfast

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To the steadfast
The reliable
The open-hearted
The ones who give and give
With whom I never have to pretend
Whom I need never fear
To the ones who brighten when they see me
Laugh at my bad jokes
Appreciate what I am
The ones with whom
I am safe
The ones who are
So easy to love

Thank you is not enough
But it’s all I have.
You are my shelter
In a windblown world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gains and Losses

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Life is full of gains and losses.
We live, we love, we lose,
We find new loves to lose.
Sometimes we pull away from them,
Sometimes they pull away from us.

People ebb and flow
In and out of my life.
I want to keep all of them
Forever in my arms
But I can only hold
This many
Off the ground at once.
And if someone struggles to be put down
It wouldn’t be loving
To refuse them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humbled

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So I’m sitting here, writing, in my angry place. About suicide, the state of the nation, all these deep poems. Trying to decide which terrible thing to post. 

Then I get a group text from my sister. It’s a gibberish link.

She does not stay up late at night. She does not use ellipses, ordinarily. And she does not send links. She’s not really techy at all. She doesn’t even open the links we send to her!

Spam spam spam spam spam.

I tell her she’s not being herself, and to change her password. My sister didn’t respond. Everyone in the thread considers themselves lucky not to have clicked it (except the one person who did and it didn’t load).

The preview said “dogapillar in my back yard.”

The group is disappointed that we can’t click on this enticing link. We try to find adequate replacements in GIFs. No dogapillars, unfortunately. Caterpillars, cat caterpillars, and old men with caterpillar mustaches. Images abound. Nothing can fill the need. We didn’t know we had this need until we weren’t allowed to see it.

Then she messages again and says that she really did send it. This was it: 

Dogerpillar-in-the-backyard8230-428cf1

 

So was sparked much discussion on what the appropriate time and syntax is for sending pictures of dogapillars. Should there be a code word to accompany it so we know it’s a legit dogapillar photo? More related GIFs and photos were exchanged.

At long last, the discussion was concluded, and bedtime announced. 

I got back to my poetry rant. It looked so self-important and… small. I can’t post this shit. I have a hard enough time taking myself seriously as it is. Nothing compares to long, ridiculous dogapillar-centric conversations. I have been fully outmatched.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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