This August is a scratchy thing to cuddle with, dull & smelling vaguely of rot.

I move in & out of its shadows now. I sit uncomfortably in righteousness, no matter how “deserved.” I may take up a cause in all-fired outrage before I lay it back down in sheepish relief.

Friends march a distant drumbeat, steady, remote, an echo of pulsing stars. At times I read by their light. At times, a cold silence intervenes. I am both instigator & recipient in this…

Over my shoulder, I see all my friendships have been at a distance. The dance of life changes; that distance lends a glow. Even when I was with now-faraway friends, they had little time to include me. This was only noted in hindsight. Encounters could be close & intense, but all succumbed to time’s delimiter. Was it me watching the clock so closely? Since the scales will not balance well, it’s best I revise, review, release, relearn.

A friend, for me, can be counting coup after a childhood of isolation. I am only as good in practice as my experiences allow. Early patterns will assert, loud as a coughing fit at a death scene. For a moment, all is Life! Color! Pageant! Then the pennons go limp to lie along the poles in mournful strands.

I find having few friends acceptable now. And none within reach who understand well what I believe. Where I look for friends, I am likely to find open wounds. I ascribe it to their thoughtlessness for I do not wish to think it of my deliberations. I can decide against being analytical & simply go to sleep to see where the needle points come morning.

At times, friends show me best how to not be in the world. But this is a world I don’t know how to be in anyway.

I understand friends, for me, are part of an atomic structure which holds together only because it repels its own components. They mirror my lesser moments in shimmering tin rather than silvered glass. My truest friend is myself, for when I seek outer bindings, I discover thin connection indeed.

In my cosmos, friends prove a fierce & fragile constant, a note sounded faraway, a Perseid Meteor slashing the throat of night. This is not my lifetime for sharing & baring; I understand so much more now by understanding none too much at all. My soul can be warm & pulsing; it can create music. But the notes are sounded against a toothed edge which cuts with intent to bleed, shaving truth from consequence. I stand stripped of belief, but no more unclothed than I have shredded coverings of others.

I may always be the mote in God’s eye & God never blinks.

Leaders protect the pack. They do not mingle. Unapologetic & tearful, I accept the verdict of my heart. I collect the slings & arrows lying at my feet. The stars & scars I bear alone.