I have some great friends,
people I actually relate to.
They’re always available.
They never get possessive or jealous.
They are extraordinary people,
one-in-a-million kind of people.
My friend,
Carl Sandburg,
has been telling me all about Chicago
and making me fall in love with it.
My buddy,
John Reed,
has been telling me all about what he saw
during his days in Russia
when the workers and peasants
took power from the rich
and started forming their own government.
My new acquaintance,
Rilke,
well,
you'd just have to meet him.
But as much as I love these friends,
these people I connect with,
they can’t help me
when I really need a hug,
when my skin needs to feel
someone else’s skin,
feeling mine,
feeling their’s.
They’re not that kind of friend.
That kind of friend
is so hard to find.
You can’t just pull them off a shelf
when you want them
and put them back
when you’re done.
They have feelings
and needs and desires.
They deserve accountability.
You have to earn their trust
over time
before they really let you see
what’s behind the cover.
Why do I have so few of these friends?
Do I lack patience?
Am I too quickly bored or disgusted
by the introductions?
Am I too suspicious
they will try to stitch me into their binding,
like others before have?
At the beginning of my life,
just after I learned to walk,
I learned how to read.
And yet after all these years
I still feel hopelessly bewildered
and ineffective
at finding and enjoying
human companionship.