On Friendship

When I sat down late last night (actually early morning hours today) I had glanced at the words from 3WW, and decided to write something primarily for We Write Poem’s prompt #20, to simply write a stream-of-consciousness piece. What you see here is an unpolished first essential draft of what came forth. I chose not to touch it any further, or dress it, but to let it be, fundamentally unembellished, just as it came. It disturbs me, and that compels me to share it. I am calling it:

On Friendship

(be advised, this is raw on several levels)

•

a grey malaise settles round
shrouds right down to the ground

to face myself in this
cuts deep and jagged
bloody to the bone

I am not one
not a good one

oh I celebrated the sap of youth
in the gaggle of my buds
In the band of my salt brothers

we laughed and surged
with lust for the ladies

straddled us a few
when we weren’t thrown over
the heat and steel
of our low-slung two-wheeled cocks

all combustin’ in a hammer thrash
rollin’ in a roar and frenzy
4-cycle sex rockets
and how the ladies liked to ride

they’d get right down
and squeeze it with their thighs
wrapped snug
painted in denim
to feel it pulse and throb
then explode down the asphalt
their asses clenched to hang on tight
to feel the rush
the tease of the G’s

made them weak in their knees
wet as a summer downpour
ready as a bimbo-slut

but I was seldom really there
for them

I took more than my fair share
my gait was bold and brash

with but a nudge
took gladly more than my share
proudly present – but not there
for anyone

not for my gang of guys

I loved them for what they were
for me
not for who they were

I was never one
just my way of brooding lonely
without being alone

my youth was my show
my production
with an ever-evolving cast
little more than familiar extras
important in that I needed them
to flesh out my soft parade

cause I was never really one

I was there for me
and my loins
and my needs
and my fears
and my insecurities
and my my my

I just was never one

I broke the rules
I fucked the rules completely
playin’ out my sad control game
terrified of letting go

playin’ hard on their needs
to wrap up tight
inside their fear and joy
to make it mine

to take it down inside my darkness
and hunker over ‘til it cooled
then scrubble out to grab some more

I wrapped them in my clever ways
and bundled them in laughter

I was good at laughter

dispensed it freely
but never gave it away

it was my tool
my hook
my way of hangin’ on
steerin’ the procession
takin’ in and hoardin’

I was the cutting clown
laughter by cutting down
on those that gathered ‘round
to watch me dance
to sing and prance
to celebrate my “specialness”
my talents and great gifts

my illusions

but I was never really there
not to elevate them
because I wasn’t one

I dealt with them
and rushed it through
to get back to me
never did do “you” — that well

I just wasn’t one

never knew how
never trusted

emotionally scarred
mentally brutalized as a child
by trust
until I abandoned trust
never gave it
never honored it
never believed it was real
too frightened to trust trust
still a scared little boy
I broke all the rules
of friendship

shattered them

and now I regret it so

I am in the shadow of my death
my body lays siege to my life
my heart is final stage failure
and now I need
what I never gave
never really understood

true friendship

gave acquaintance on a grand scale
but not friendship

not as a young man
when the seeds of such
are fresh to plant
to take the long and lasting root
and ripen through the years

I missed the season

to quote the Floyd
the race has run
I missed the starting gun

I have had 3 wives
still married
and I have children
have their blessed love

no one who knew me
as an arrogant young man
would have believed then
that I’d manage that miracle

but no deep enduring friends

dark grey malaise settles round
shrouds right down to the ground
and now I am so sorry
such deep regret
it seems too late
for meaningful friendship

I broke the rules
I’m paying the price

* * *

rob kistner © 2010

• this also satisfies the 9/22 prompt at Three Word Wednesday,
and prompt #71 at Carry On Tuesday.

26 thoughts on “On Friendship”

  1. Rob, thank you for letting this simply be as it is!

    As a poem it says what it needs to be. Yes, an open stream, and perfectly clear, understandable. That’s the best history can ever portend. Expression that informs (which also means, educate, make light of anything!). Well done.

    It is a vanity to think that we will never produce harm or carelessness in our lives. We do. We all do. Yet many may never even pause to see, much less say in open voice. And if we come to learning, and learning our selves that comes first of necessity, then what price is fairly paid. So I’ll not but gladly receive what you’ve well shared here.

    Poems are not about the art or craft alone, they are about the voice that speaks. My thanks. ~neil

    Reply

  2. Thank you for your gracious words Neil — I am looking at this piece, surprising as it was, as another salve to help heal what still remains of a wound from my youth, from what happened to me from crib to adolescence — and how I was as a result…

    …rob

    Reply

    1. I appreciate your words Diane, I labored and fretted whether I should edit this deeply, or if I should publish it at all. But it was so authentic in the moment of its writing, and so genuine to a pain and sadness I’ve long felt — I could not deny it, nor conceal it. It is as close to my raw unfiltered self as I’m likely willing to go…

      …rob

      Reply

    1. Thank you Thom. I genuinely appreciate your candor and your open mind.

      I have felt for years that I failed completely as a friend for the first 30+ years of my life — had little or no idea what the term truly meant. As an abandoned infant and an abused child in a wholly dysfunctional adoptive family, I didn’t know love, trust, selflessness — I was fighting for emotional survival. I possessed no mechanism that would allow me the vulnerability necessary to be a friend, so I never was one.

      I regret that so to this day. In that period of life, birth into the late 30 somethings, when deep and lasting friendships are forged – I was emotionally disabled. That said, I am wiser now — but friendships of real substance, seem elusive in later life. We old codgers all seem a bit scarred and somewhat jaded. The lasting connections seem to come earlier in our life curve, when I was disconnected…

      …rob

      Reply

    1. Thank you Thomma, it was unnerving to have posted this. I debated whether I should edit it to be less ‘raw’, worried I might offend some of my regular readers, even did an edit — but the edited version felt insincere. This came from someplace painful in my core, that needed to express and be heard…

      …rob

      Reply

  7. This is very touching… some how I have similar experience.. end result.. a happy closenit family and hardly any enduring friendships..thank you Rob.. you are courageous..

    Reply

  10. Wow. I am amazed, pleasantly startled, and glad that you chose to leave it this raw, this visceral, and this truthful. Thank you for taking a chance not only with blunt honesty which your language and imagery reflect, but for your take on rules…it seems we tend to focus on the rules that the breaking of will get our asses in jail or censured but never on the ones that really count (i.e. in interpersonal relationships). And I like how you weaved the “just wasn’t one” refrain into the poem. WELL DONE.

    -Nicole

    Reply

    1. I wrote it stream-of-consciousness, closed my eyes, hit the ‘publish’ key, and then stressed over the decision for the better part of a day — but it was a brutally honest write, so I let it be — and thank you for your kind words Nicole…

      …rob

      Reply

  14. Hi Rob, brutally honest so I applaud. Thank you for sharing this piece. It is horribly difficult to be a true friend.. it almost requires a saint-like quality to take in the quirks of someone unlike you..but it’s not too late to forge true connection I don’t think, at any age.

    Reply

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