friendship degradation mechanics

May 5, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i was better
at being a full friend
instead of a ‘when i see you’
kind of ami

i’m certainly not a
‘fair weather friend’
because i’ll stick by you
in storms and sun alike,
but if i don’t get your face in my mind
and have reason to reach out
i’ll get stuck in my head about
whether or not
me contacting you would be
an inconvenience
or remind you how long it’s been since
we last connected
and so i avoid it
at all costs
and live in my own little world of
feeling like no time has passed
like we could immediately pick up a friendship
fresh from where we left off
(just have more fodder for conversation catch-up)
but i know people change
and i don’t know how to rearrange my brain
to comprehend this fact
that everyone else seems to get
accept
move
on

but there was reason we were friends back then
i don’t see why we wouldn’t still now
beautifully get along

March 9, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

if i’ve ever said
‘i love you’
i still do.

if i’ve ever told you
we should meet up for coffee
and chat the day away,
i’ve actually meant it.

if you’ve ever meant a great deal to me
you still do.

time is a mortal construction
and isn’t linear.

i don’t have
‘friendship degradation mechanics’
and if we’ve had a falling out
i’ve told you so.

if we’ve simply drifted
apart
from one another
(over time or space or experiences)
just know
i think of you often
and if you were to reach out
to me
for that coffee/chat/catchup
i’d be on top of that opportunity
in an instant

but

i don’t know how other people work,
so i don’t say ‘hey’ out of the blue
when i really mean
‘you’ve been on my mind
my whole life
and i still think of you
as you were
at 11 or 16 or 22,
but i know people grow
and i’d love to see
how you’ve grown
because you are important to me
and i love hearing you tell stories,
and debating opinions on tv shows,
and getting to see inside your soul’
because that’s
~~too much~~
for some people
(and i don’t know if that’s the direction you’ve grown
so
i play it safe

and i say

nothing.)

June 16, 2021 (part 2)

/ HJ / Leave a comment

when one is not plagued
by friendship degradation mechanics
a special vacation
to see old friends
can nearly immediately
feel abnormally normal
to the point where
you kind of forget
where you are
or how old you are
(or everything else that has happened these last few years
when folks ask how your life has been…)

~~~

driving
still equals freedom
but the freedom
explored
in the united states of america
isn’t really that free
(when was it ever?)

~~~

how are toddlers
both
straight up babies
and tiny real humans
at the same time?

May 29, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the never-ending trap
of Time
growing up it seems to go by so slowly
long summer nights
endless school days
waiting for santa claus
waiting to perform
waiting to hear back about important news
but somewhere around teenage years
it starts to slide
and no longer is there more time than you know what to do with
but it starts downhill and seems to snowball
out of control
days slip past you in the blink of an eye
(how has it been a decade since i went to college?)
and especially for someone like me
who has very little tracking in my internal clock about time
who could easily talk to a best friend from years gone by
and just be excited that we have even more life stories to talk about
it’s hard to quantify
where those years all went
because to me
they seem
to just
be…

gone