Old friends old sores

Old and new, new and old, intones one poet, in a poem about gifts of love and friendship. Which brings to mind a gay critic-friend’s more cynical take of it: “My lovers are disposable, though reusable and recyclable, but my friends are not.”

Thankfully, my own swivel door hasn’t been that busy gorging and disgorging people, and this year had been astonishingly good for me. Made more enemies out of old ones, found some new ones, mostly incorporeal, like minds I met over at FB. Then the old friends lost suddenly materialized: Sheilfa! It’s been ages! You still remember me??? Some bringing good news, others their old sores; some as old suitors wearing new suits; most went worse, dumbed down by the years of car shopping. A few got sharper, and colder.

We somehow crossed path again, strangely, amazingly, and we’re still making it up. Talisa forgives: the lover, the fat around her belly, the oncoming winter; calls it ladder of years. Lia checks in, bearing all her 56 years, a gift of an herb garden growing out of the slime you both once stood in. Mimi looks on; today is her 44th birthday and she snaps, eyes bloodshot, wielding a knife her old self with those old words, always wary wary of me, I may fall, I may self-destruct again, love should be easy, not hard.

I wave back. I’m in Jolo, she is not, among the ruins of unfought wars picking up what I must. This is my foreign country, my exile, my found place. I love. And won't be lost again.