Isn’t Friendship Like That Too?
Jun 7th, 2008 by Ree Joy
Who coined love and minted it
over the gold of friendship?
What fool first painted sunsets
and made them backdrops
for so many leavings?
Why did they have
to come up with a word that spells goodbye
so awfully well?
I like love when it’s just a weight
on your belly; a glance, a regard, longer than most,
a hunger, deeper than words,
a nameless longing to hold,
and be held.
I like love when it’s just a smile
that fills up the hallway,
and possesses your fifteen minutes
without taking.
And isn’t friendship like that too?
Who coined love
and made it selfish as gold?
Who priced it over Mastercard?
What’s loving you more means
when it’s not worshipping the ground you walk on?
What’s loving you less entails
when it’s you walking through the remains
of my entreaties?
I like love when it doesn’t make me cry;
the possibility of you, the possibility of me,
etching shadows, and curves,
and sunshine on bedsheets without regret.
I like love when it’s just a hunger
meeting your own like a long lost blessing;
a fulfillment of a set of memories
gently colliding with another,
like finding the future in a yesterday
that wasn’t meant to be
back then.
And isn’t friendship like that too?
so much like water for chocolate (yes, of the Laura Esquivel fame)… friendship and love… almost but not quite, it is forever pleasant and captivating because it never becomes close enough to reveal the rough edges and so it can never hurt, and it can never take. but I agree, it can possess.
I love these lines:
“a fulfillment of a set of memories
gently colliding with another,
like finding the future in a yesterday
that wasn’t meant to be
back then.
And isn’t friendship like that too?”
These lines so fit whatever situation I am now. Thanks, friend, for writing so eloquently these things that I can’t find words for.
great discussions are wearing me down… and people… and personalities. I’ll just be a moment, resting along these waters… sigh