friendship

Friendship in these pandemic times

Pelgris1 Comment

My friends are never out of my mind
I have several times a day where I would love to talk to them but I don’t. I don’t send a message. Or meme. I don’t say anything about anything happening. I am silent.

It’s fear. Fear that I’ll fall flat. That I’m tolerated not liked. It starts when you realize who you think that they think you are, who you think you are, is not who you really are.

You’re real friends see past the mask you are using to protect yourself. Past posture and phrase.

And you’re left with this raw exposed self. And you can hide or distance yourself. Not on purpose, but you never thought there would ever be people who wanted to hang out who transcended circumstances.

Not work friends, not writing friends. Though that’s where you met. Real friends. Who are just as bad about reaching out as you are. But who, when one of you does, reconnect like magnets.

Intoxicating friendship. The kind you crave.
Pre-pandemic, I used to meet every week with a couple of friends for lunch. For years. We didn’t make it every week but we tried. Sometimes schedules were too much. But I miss that schedule. That sure schedule of weekly dance.
Of trying each week.

Above almost all things, I want that back. And given my inability to reach out, I wish for it. It’s dumb. They are right there. Across the ether. But, still, I’m silent. Maybe I’ll put it on my calendar.

It seems that’s the only way I have to get it done.

Bitter tear Symphony

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Friends who are family is all I’ve ever wanted
They slot into my soul like puzzle pieces
Energistic connection which makes everything feel
…
All right
The last 2 years have been harder than I thought would be possible
Harder especially since my family
The family I chose
Had been breaking apart
I lost two people to just life and distance and time
We are droplets running like a river
Believing us to be strong
Till one thing
And another
Drive the point home
We weren’t a river
Just drops
Held loose in a semicrystalline state
Always destined to break apart
I thought my years of isolated broken would serve as a deterrent to heartbreak
But it turns out that once you are healed enough
Those wounds are no longer haunting
Nor familiar
The carve in
Old sites long scarred
Past by in favor of fresh flesh
I’ve built this network of people I love
And as the pandemic drags on and on
I realize that the illusion of self
Is just that
Without my family of choice
I am diminished
And nothing can take the place of the pack

That consensual lie

Pelgris2 Comments

Why do we embrace the mythology of lifelong friends? Friendship so close that you talk daily. That you meet up for breakfast, go out for drinks, and are just generally each others family.

Are our actual families broken? That it creates this yearning to belong. Is it this which draws us into cults…or fantasy sports leagues? Are we just so lonely that the response has been by our storytellers to create this friendship mythology?

Shows like Friends, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings, and even It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia. All ensemble casts. All depicting a level of close friendship which generally doesn’t exist.

But we clearly want it to. So why doesn’t it? If we clearly want it, what stops it from occurring.

I mean, first off… None of the people in those shows have kids. Because once that happens your friends disappear for at least a few years. And, ever after, friendship becomes a secondary thing to that family unit.

In other words, life gets in the way. And not all friendships are forever. Some are right now friendship or circumstance friends.

Maybe we’re all just so lonely that we create these friend mythologies to compensate for the lack of connection and permanence we feel in our lives.

Or maybe life just drives a wedge.
I’ve had some friends say they wish we all lived together. I wish we’d buy a street of houses and move in together. These are the people I want in my life. Always. But, I know that’s not how it’s going to be.

So I’ll watch another long running cast of fictional friends. And pretend that’s something that happens. Somewhere. Just not to me.

A hug may be required, but not yet

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All relationships are hard. They require a personal commitment to another person to be available to that person. To talk, not just when it’s convenient. To think of others who are important to you even if circumstances change and you aren’t able to be by their side.

And that’s difficult. It requires making the conscious choice to take time out and use it to maintain your relationship. I’m not always great about that. I’m aware of it and I try to work against my impulse to isolate and hurt instead of addressing the problem.

And in these times where isolation is literal life and death, it behooves us to use the technology we have to reach out and maintain those relationships. What are we fighting for if not each other?

I’m no thief of dreams

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I have
In arms encircled
In promises bled
Known passion
Known love

Each time blue flame
Burns higher and higher
Each time, snuffed out

This jealousy of possession
Why allow it when
Love multiplies

Those who are free
Give freely
Those who are otherwise
I cannot take what is not given

Your only cause to fear
Look internal
I refuse to be the cause of love breaking

But I will, pick up my friend
Hold them cradled in my love
And whatever will be
Will be

A dream on a Sunday Morn

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I dreamed that I was at a club as the sun was falling Sunday night. I was invited there by the owners. One of whom sat the door and another was behind the bar. There was a full kitchen serving small dishes and a upper floor where people could rest and sit and have food. It was a gay club and this is important. I’m sitting at the door talking to my friend and people are walking in, hesitant, young. Some afraid to step in, some afraid they will be turned away, rejected here as they are rejected elsewhere. Snubbed here as they are snubbed elsewhere. But my friend smiles and nods and they are welcomed in. The club night is called Church. In walks a big burly guy, not bad looking but rough. And he turns to my friend and says “it’s a bit blasphemous to have a club called Church on Sunday.” My friend just shrugs and waves him in. But I can’t let it go. I say “We call it church because this is the place we are loved and accepted. Here we aren’t judged for who we love. Here we aren’t told we are monsters or unworthy. Here we are free. THIS is our church where we are free to worship as we please with those that please us.” My friend looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. Because I don’t generally confront people about their bullshit. Then he turns to the guy and says, “Yeah, what he said.” After sitting the door for awhile we go in and we have fun and dance. We are not the stereotype. We are not good dancers, but we are happy, enthusiastic and free. A young gentleman whom I am acquainted with slips his hand across my shoulder, his hand resting on my chest. I place my hand on his and say, “Hello, my love.” I say it impishly, playfully. But he pulls his hand back like I burned him. I turn around to see his shocked expression and I can’t help but laugh. My friend gives me a look and we smile and laugh as the young man disappears, fleeing. Whether from our laughter or the shock, I don’t know. My friend has the DJ put on a record and tells the room with a shake of the head and a the back of the hand to his forehead that He’s sorry but he had to. Then the beat of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive comes up and we groan and laugh and people get up from their seats and dance like silly happy fools. And then I wake.

It all comes from one place

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We all sit in this stasis
Just wondering what our place is
Waking up we wonder
When will what we built, be plowed under

We’re treading water
Waiting to be reborn

But rebirth is painful
It’s not shameful
To cry our tears
To build up from our fears

We live by forgetting
Let’s change the venue
Change the setting

We’re all just healing
Our broken hearts reeling

But we hold each other up
Our hands around hearts are cupped
Keeping that blood
from spilling
out

Love is the journey
Make no mistake
Without it we’re burning

I’m a Sir not a master
I’ve helped others through disaster
Build you up to set you free
Maybe, someday, that’ll be me

Dissonant stream of consciousness

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I’m staring at a blank screen, starting then stopping, erasing and trying to find words to describe this whirlwind of I don’t know and how to proceed and what am I doing and it’ll all be worth it and am I failing and not getting there and waking up early and she tells me I push and they say that I don’t and I am confused and I am certain and I want to move forward and I don’t know what forward is and it’s either falling apart or coming together and I can’t tell which and I am always strong but I’m not always strength and I seem silent but I need to speak and I don’t have any answers to the questions I ask and I’m waiting and I am impatient and I want the truth and I can’t seem to find it and I break but I’m not broken and I give in to my emotions and I can’t know what is the right time and I am embarrassed by things I can’t change and I hear Sir and I need it and all of this incoherence as I stare at the blank screen

Dipping below the faultline

Pelgris3 Comments

Wash hands in broken glass
This smoke curls
Burns away blood

Consonant spill but
The waves never make it
To ears

Frantic replies
Ignored missives
Friends when needed

But just this smoke
And blood
Else times

Treatment like a cloudy needle
To make you feel…better
Used and discarded

Scattered in the shattered glass
You use to cut yourself
To remind

This is living

Sitting on the sidelines

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You self identify as the thing that you hate because by embracing it you can make it a little bit yours even though it’s what is destroying you. You keep running on that treadmill needing to control something, anything, drowning in socially acceptable positive self image when what really needs to change is this situation where neglect of your needs and desires is the best you can hope for. But I can’t make the choice for you, I can only sit here telling you that you are valued for the things other than what you do for other people. That you are valued for your self and hope that some day you will listen and that this thought will work it’s way into you past your defenses that say you are not worth enough, not doing enough, not human enough to get the things you need without destroying yourself, that you must fit into the mold that they impress upon you to have value.

I’ve read your art and seen it and that glimmer in your eye is passion and unshed tears for this future you give up to fit. It’s never the right time, enough time, always busy, always in motion but never for the pieces of you that can break you free.

You’re fighting so hard to be this perfect thing that you are hurting who you are and it’s terrifying to watch and I’d make it all stop but you won’t let me. I’m happy you say with a smile that never reaches your eyes. I love him you say like a talisman you hold out in front of you. While his expectations and silence chip away at the pieces you try to slip past your walls.

Love does not destroy like that. To be sure it is destructive but it’s passage is marked by rebirth, by growth, by joy and waking. But you love him, you say. And I can’t keep pushing because each time I do you pull back a little more. I just want you to see what I see. To wake up. To see what everyone but you sees in your tone and words. Your discontent. Not wanting to be here but when you are there you aren’t comfortable either.

Watching your pain. But I am not allowed to act.