Friday, May 25, 2012

Stalker




I used to write stupid poems about friendship
Irritating diatribes about how loyal friends are
How I would always be there,
How undying my friendship would be,
Eternally walking side by side
Tonto and his Lone Ranger
Batman and his Robin
Poems dripping with such saccharine
You needed insulin to read them
And a lie detector to deal with their untruths.
Friendship isn’t sweet, isn’t a kiss on the cheek
Isn’t a midnight whisper of faith,
It is a kick in the teeth, a punch in the belly,
A rubbing of salt in a wound
It is hurting and being hurt without meaning, too,
It is a search for truths that might not exist,
Ripping open the other person’s chest to the core
To find an empty space where you thought was a heart,
Threads of something else clinging to your fingers
As you pull your hand back out,
Something perhaps more valuable than bits of bone and blood
Or even love
I keep wanting to write nice poems full of sugar and spice,
Closing my eyes to everything, never saying anything
That risks anything ore means anything either,
Life walking on egg shells that I fear might break
And send me into an exile of silence because my friend
Really doesn’t want to hear what I perceive as truth.
But I can’t write poems like that any more
 needing to feel real even when it hurts
Always trying to say what I feel even when I’m wrong
But in the end always stalking real friendship,
Even when that means exile,
Living my life as an unwanted friend, aching for the chance
To spring into action, Batman leaping to Robin’s aid
To defeat demons he can’t defeat on his own,
knowing the whole time that moment may never come

email to Al Sullivan

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