what have I become

my sweetest friend

I have good friends. I have friends so good that they make the sun brighter and the days warmer and the nights, well, the nights a little more awkward. My friends are the breath in my lungs and the steel in my glare, all at the same time. My friends. And they vary, in their level of intimacy. I have the friends that I see once every six weeks, but it seems like just yesterday. I have the friends that I see every day and it seems like it's been forever. I have the friends that really, if I could, I would just never leave. And I have a few friends that are impossible to categorize, except to say that really, I really don't know what I would do without them.

And I have a friend, now and then, that is more than that. That gets something that no one else gets, that gets away with things that no one else gets away with. They get to be something that they weren't, before. Someone. And it's good, and I'm good, and we're happy.

Then somehow it all goes wrong. All of a sudden, sometimes, but not always. Sometimes it's a slow taper, sometimes I don't realize it until it's done, sometimes I hear it somewhere else. My favorite thing is hearing it from them. It goes a little something like this.

You are amazing. You are fantastic. You are stellar and the planets and the harmony and oh God, how did I get so lucky, the sky just opened up and dumped you in my lap and because I am so grateful I am going to do everything in my power to fuck with your brain and smash your little heart and puree your self esteem until you don't know what's what or who is where and you certainly, certainly don't know what you mean to me. And while I'm doing that, I'm going to let you watch while I take what should be yours and give it to everyone else, because, and try and keep up here, because you are too important to give it to so I will hand it off to people that mean nothing. Nothing, at all, and if you need to cry about it you go right ahead, because I will be here to comfort you, because I am your fucking friend.

And because we are friends I go, Oh, Okay. I will take that. I will take whatever you hand me, in fact, because we're friends. Because I value what we have and because I know that you really, really care about me and because I cannot say no to you but mostly it's because I have no fucking clue what else to do. What am I supposed to do? Tell you to fuck off? Explain to you that I would rather serve myself my own intestines than hear one more fucking story about that girl that you went out with? Tell you that I love the intimacy and the affection and the comfort between us but if you put your hands in my hair one more time I am going to have a fucking heart attack? How do I tell you that? How do I tell myself that? I miss you when you aren't right there. But anymore, whenever you're right there, I realize that the closer you are to me, the closer I am to completely losing my shit.

But we're friends. Friends. And I love my friends. I love the ones that are good to me and the ones that forget about me and the ones that hurt the ones I love, and the ones that do not even bother to see me to the fucking door. Yes, you. All three of you. And I love, I really just love being punished for being such a great friend. Maybe I will be a not so great friend in the future, how would you like that? How would that taste, if I were a smidge less thoughtful and a tad less awesome and maybe a whole lot more of a stranger? Then do I win? Because I am tired, really tired, of losing out when I should win. If I am what you say I am, then stop taking it away every chance you get. If you care about me at all then be good to me. If you want to be friends, then be my friend, because I will miss you when you aren't. But if we are friends, stop taking what is not yours. Those things are for the ones that really want it, the ones that see that I am more than that, and am worth more than that, the ones that are not only able but are thankful for the opportunity to get that back. Stop taking what is not yours, because I don't know how to tell you no, and as my friend, you should tell me when I am heading in the wrong direction. Even if you are the one leading me.