The lights dim

None needed

The music begins

We listen

We are receptive

And filter out objections

Forgiving and giving

Foregoing and going

Forethought of thoughtfulness

Forever and ever

The music swells

Locomotion in motion

Two souls dancing to a slow song

That doesn't end

Until there's only one left

Who dances now by memory

You always spoke so little of yourself,

You could bury your best friend, and tell nobody at work;

You are "so good at keeping things vague,"

In the most intriguing ways.

But, I'm not psychic because I can read you,

You said I understand you, better than anyone else in town;

You are such a star, a gravity well,

I find that hard to believe.

But, I do know you, don't I...

I feel your eyes when you glance at my Insta, before the hearts appear;

You love my photography: raw,

Natural and unrefined, unfiltered,

Where others just see trees, weeds.

You delve into understanding me,

And call me sophisticated when others just see the clown;

You expect me at my best yet love it when I'm bad.

Always a conscious choice.

I see the beauty in your mess,

And I appreciate the seemingly-random calculations you make

That place others before you, always pushing us for betterment,

Coach.

What a strange thing to understand someone else as oneself;

Stranger still to appreciate the flaws alongside the healthy positives,

But I still can't read your mind.

Brandon was fixing his hair in the mirror when the buzzer to his apartment rang. He made one final adjustment and opened the door. A short l stout black lady in pink glasses, a stained lab coat, and pajama pants greeted him with two bottles of cheap tequila in one hand and a bag of McDonalds in the other Brandon smiled and stepped aside so she could enter. He punched in a code on his door and the security measures enabled.

"It's like you knew the way to my heart was to get me drink and feed me bullshit," he said, turning to face her

"I just brought over my normal dinner," she responded. She had taken her lab coat off to reveal a red tank top and was pulling her pajama pants off.

"Well, Admiral Tse approves," Brandon said with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you actually attempted to dress up for this."

"You made it seem like we were doing more than just getting drunk and fucking around, so figured maybe it might be an idea. Plus, more clothes for if we play strip poker again." She unrolled the tank top until it reached just above her knees.

"You're the weirdest person I've ever met, Rheme," Brandon chuckled.

"You were not stripped down to just your thong in strip poker after two hands. I come prepared."

Brandon smiled and kissed her. "It's not like I didn't warn you I was good when we first met."

"Hmm. Do I remember what exactly we did thirty years ago?" She dramatically pretended to think. "I think not."

Brandon's hand slid down just below her waist. "You did drink a lot."

"And smoked a lot of weed. And did a lot of cocaine."

"God, we did so much cocaine," Brandon said, laughing. "I'm surprised we can still smell."

"Shall we get started?"

"Of course, Lauren," Brandon said smiling.

Rheme's smile faded. Brandon's face reddened. "I'm sorry, Rhe, I just--"

"I understand," Rheme said, feigning a smile. She'd pulled away from him and was unwrapping the food. "You still miss her."

"It's not all the time." Brandon sat next to her. She wasn't looking at him. Brandon tried to hold her hand but she pulled her hand away. "Being with you really has been helping. But, I mean, she's the mother of my kids."

"I understand," Rheme said. Her voice was shaky and she was looking at the floor. "I promise it's okay."

She felt Brandon wrap his arms around her. "You're important to me."

"Okay."

"Don't shut down on me, woman."

"I'm not shutting down."

"Thirty years of knowing you, and you think I can't tell when you're shutting down?"

"I just want to eat and get fucking wasted," Rheme muttered.

Brandon just held her tighter. "Not until you talk about how you feel."

"You're the worst," she murmured.

"That's why I'm your bestie with the testes," Brandon kissed her forehead and pulled her into his arms. "Speak your mind."

"I just wish we--I hadn't broken off our engagement."

"I mean, it's not like I don't still have the ring. The kids are all grown, and even if they weren't, fuck them kids, remember?"

Rheme chuckled. Brandon kissed her again. "I haven't been feeling good, B."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to traumatize my girls. They already have lost so much. Plus, Mae is getting engaged and Nae has that new job and I can't hurt them--"

"Rheme, what are you talking about?"

"I tried to hang myself. That's why I jumped at the chance to come over again."

"Oh. Baby, I--"

"You know how I feel about that word."

"I'm sorry. I just, I love you. I never want you to do anything like that to yourself."

Brandon was rubbing his finger on Rheme's neck. In the dull light of his living room, he could see the dark line where she had attempted to hang herself.

"You love me?"

"Well, don't sound so shocked," Brandon chuckled. "I know how we started but I mean, there's a reason you're the only friend with benefits I've ever had for longer than a year."

Rheme smiled and kissed him. "Well, I love you too. I always have."

"Well, let's eat so I can show you how much I love you."

The clouds hang low in the sky, the wind seems to hold its breath

The moonlight casts a faint glimmer through the glass, on the high of your cheekbones.

You exhale quietly with the smallest of smiles on your face,

listening to the secrets of the walls.

I stare at the side of your face, longingly, almost.

But what am I longing for?

You seem to hear my thoughts and turn to me,

reaching out a slender hand.

I take it, and my heart steadies.

I close my eyes, feel the sweat on my skin

The warmth of your hand, the heady smell of sweetness lingering

In my every memory.

I look down at our hair.

Strands of mousy brown & rich, molten mahogany strands entwining

There is not one part of you that I have not committed to memory.

When my eyes travel upwards again,

I find your striking gaze meeting mine once more.

Yet, I do not have the urge to put all I'm feeling into words.

Because I know you understand.

I know because of the way your eyes glimmer,

The way your grip on my fingers tighten slightly

The way you close your eyes once more

That you simply know.

And it comes to me, that

this is what I'd been looking for

A friendship, a love so strong

Words seem to fail.

Where, instead,

Our souls melt together

Our touches heal scars

Our gazes speak volumes,

Louder than any string of letters in the world could.

I tilt my head to the window, catching a glimpse of the moon

Before the clouds shadow it once more.

And with your hand still in mine,

I make a wish.

Later on, if you'd ask me,

"What is it that you wanted?"

I'd say,

An eternal, everlasting love with you;

There is nothing else I could ask for.

My life was off to a rocky start when I met him. These days it feels like I'd just gotten out of bed from a 15 year hang over. No effervescent numbing liquid or chlorophyll trips with Mary J; no I was too young for that. Now I reflect upon myself with a grim stature ready to either fling a fist enervated by stifled frustration or flee in a graceful silence outshined by the heavy clops of feet receding along the ground. I'm cold, not because of people, but because it's autumn. Hibernation is settling in and there won't be any need for excuses to cancel plans. It's going to snow and only get colder from here on throughout the month. However, it's in these dark and cold moments that we hope we can turn to a warmth in the night. A flicker in the dark; we don't have to talk, just buoy in the ebb of a soft presence. A glow not stifled but intensified to the point where I couldn't cower nor could I hide. Steam left my face in a reluctant rise as we laughed about the week and gossipped about old acquaintances; howling into the sky while forgetting about our breathe dancing in furls through still crisp air. And just like that it became fire, growing throughout my arms and into my hands; the locket carried more than his memory. It carried love.

Through intimate friendship

I have known the meaning

of Ambivalence

I used to confuse

with Indifference

Now I understand,

heft of both,

Love and Hate

sometimes you are One,

sometimes you are Other

and Together, we amplify

and neutralize, one and other.

11.03.2023

Intimate Friendships Challenge @TheWolfeDen

On the topic of intimate friendship, I have more wonderings than insights. I question for instance, if it is possible to have more than one such relationship, at a time, I mean.

Rotating this in my mind, like a swirling marble, I have strong doubts. We don't reveal ourselves to everyone in the same light. Neither in presentation, nor interpretation. Friendship requires considerable focus and attention. And intimacy, all the more so.

I chose a marble, as our metaphor, for its perceptible qualities; the sound of dull drop or rolling, the impenetrable translucent visual, the coolness to the touch, that warms in the hand if held tight. But then, in a closed fist, or even half open palm, you don't see it all that much. Suggesting, intimacy requires a certain proximity, close enough to peer through, and far enough to view in the round. The marble cannot be in a pile of stuff, or in a collective bag. Intimacy requires it to be singled out. Tactile. Treated like a diamond, or suspect stuff. Like somebody grasping the sphere delicately between index and thumb.

Every marble, for the aficionado, has a whole unexplored world trapped inside. A planet with air pockets, tones, traces of shadow and sunshine. A whole other life. We can say causally, "oh, a marble," but the intimate will take his or her time, in degrees of criticism and appreciation to see the way the swirl tips to one side, or how the color fades from bright to nuance, darkness to light, in different times of day or night. Like the moon. The intimate will play with that found marble. Compulsively.

The intimate knows the marble has a story to tell and it cannot be fathomed by the condition of the exterior or even the components of the interior. Experience is somewhere beyond that, and it can only be tapped on a level that transcends. In interaction. That is perhaps the very thing that we are referring to as Intimacy.

The marble is an oddity in itself. We think of Jacks and Marbles, but there are hundreds of ways to play, and more often than not the lone marble is picked up, completely out of context. Sometimes we put that marble, inexplicably, in our pocket. We instinctively roll it in-between our fingers, unseen, except in our imagination-- a thing in motion, with us, in multidimensional thought.

Is intimate friendship like that? We are suddenly not alone but carrying someone else around, in thought.

I know we can't very well hold more than two marbles at a time, to the left and right, appreciating them individually. And in my thinking, I note, only one or the other will surface at a time. Just like the focal point of the eye physically is very, very specific, no matter how good our peripheral vision.

Speaking of the physical, I wonder also about the yin yang, for completion of thought. I observe that for myself, intimate friendship must be with an opposite. It's like I need the reflections of the male perspective, that I myself am lacking, to better understand life. Which begs the question, just how physical is the relationship? Again, I think of the marble. We seem to have (however flawed) a fuller picture, of it, when held in thought. As soon as you touch it, especially if sloppy, much of it is covered up, and it is hard to see through, beyond the surface, exposed, which is already distorted by surrounding reflected light. Worse, we see our own skin first--the holding of--rather than the marble and what it presents as subject rather than object.

On a tangent, what was it that Michaelangelo said--about marble--?

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

In intimate friendship we carve, very, very gently, mentally, ephemerally, adding and subtracting nothing, in sum, despite the necessary give and take. Like molecular cells are replaced every single second, though visually we remain perceptibly the same, in the moment.

In another remark by the sculptor:

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.

I chose to distort the interpretation of the latter, creatively. I believe that it means the more we chip away the more intricate the sculpture, perhaps the better the Art? But in friendship, a statue is the antithesis of deeper understanding. I return to the perfect sphere of our original small found marble. Formed as such, it stays, intact, regardless of contact. We do not, and there is no waste. Intimacy is in the living.

"What’s next?"

The tears were dry, but hands transitioned from slippery wet to a tacky, gummy film.

She hadn't moved from where she’d landed on the floor, leaning against spattered drywall.

He took in the sight of her. Broken nose, black eye, ripped blouse.

Familiar Zippo sounds filled the room after she nodded to his silent question.

"Give me one."

"You don't smoke."

She absently picked dried blood under her fingernails. "It's a day for firsts," she whispered, glancing at what remained of a man who fancied himself pater familias.

Shrugging, he gave up his Winston and started the cleanup.

We aren't always together. But we support each other year after year.

We don't know each other's social circles, not anymore. But we know the people that matter.

We don't have the same tastes. But we have a lot in common.

There was a time when we were always together, when we knew everyone the other person knew, when we liked the same things.

As we grew, we changed. Instead of growing further apart, time drew us in closer. Because we mature, we complement each other's knowledge, providing timely advice. We experience different things, so our stories and jokes are still fresh and funny.

The sun sets and rises thousands of times, still I know you, and you know me. On this planet, we have each other.