aplus
12-21-2005, 03:45 PM
http://slumz.boxden.com/showthread.php?t=577424
I wrote this a long time ago, but I don't think I ever shared this with the Boxden crew. Let me know what you think...
What Is Between Us
I appreciate your friendship,
but I hate what is between us.
We associate just a few times each year.
Brief, structured meetings
where months of misplaced moments
are stuffed into thirty minute sessions.
Circumstances force me to
drive to you, but that is not a complaint.
The visits are worth the travel time.
Phone conversations are erratic, dictated by your
current lifestyle. Shrill rings arrive at odd times,
but I never decline dialogue; even when finances
are depleted and your collect calls raid my wallet.
Sometimes you rekindle the nostalgia
of paper and pen in this age of electronic mail.
Letters merely pacify pain; deciphering handwriting
is sloppy work and everyone would rather
have you near family and friends.
You never go out anymore. I hide undertones of guilt
while experiencing fun at group gatherings.
Should have grown closer when the opportunity existed.
I could have steered you around the potholes of youth,
or shown you the consequences of faulty decisions.
I admire your endurance, but I detest how you must live.
In the underbelly of humanity, always on guard.
I often try to imitate your strength. We hold similar outlooks,
but our thoughts reside in conflicting poles.
What else divides us?
Eighty kilometers of highway, followed by a country mile of gravel roads
City air choked with pollution and rural atmospheres scented with manure
Metal fencing plus tons of reinforced concrete
To me, you are a counselor who accidentally
supplies sensible advice, a point guard with a wicked
crossover dribble, someone who encouraged me to get my first job,
and the one person I trust – besides my mother.
To me, you remain a close friend.
To society, however, you are inmate number 176294-MCF,
celebrating eight to ten birthdays in a medium-security penitentiary,
maybe fewer if you discover the good behavior
that you have avoided most of your life.
I despise prison walls and barbed wire fences, the space
between neighborhood and cellblock, the roads
separating home and hell, the abuse that you substitute for
survival, the time you spend sealed in a living tomb,
and that we no longer talk like normal guys who grew up
sneaking into pool halls, pretending to be cousins.
Like I said,
I appreciate your friendship,
but I hate what is between us.
I wrote this a long time ago, but I don't think I ever shared this with the Boxden crew. Let me know what you think...
What Is Between Us
I appreciate your friendship,
but I hate what is between us.
We associate just a few times each year.
Brief, structured meetings
where months of misplaced moments
are stuffed into thirty minute sessions.
Circumstances force me to
drive to you, but that is not a complaint.
The visits are worth the travel time.
Phone conversations are erratic, dictated by your
current lifestyle. Shrill rings arrive at odd times,
but I never decline dialogue; even when finances
are depleted and your collect calls raid my wallet.
Sometimes you rekindle the nostalgia
of paper and pen in this age of electronic mail.
Letters merely pacify pain; deciphering handwriting
is sloppy work and everyone would rather
have you near family and friends.
You never go out anymore. I hide undertones of guilt
while experiencing fun at group gatherings.
Should have grown closer when the opportunity existed.
I could have steered you around the potholes of youth,
or shown you the consequences of faulty decisions.
I admire your endurance, but I detest how you must live.
In the underbelly of humanity, always on guard.
I often try to imitate your strength. We hold similar outlooks,
but our thoughts reside in conflicting poles.
What else divides us?
Eighty kilometers of highway, followed by a country mile of gravel roads
City air choked with pollution and rural atmospheres scented with manure
Metal fencing plus tons of reinforced concrete
To me, you are a counselor who accidentally
supplies sensible advice, a point guard with a wicked
crossover dribble, someone who encouraged me to get my first job,
and the one person I trust – besides my mother.
To me, you remain a close friend.
To society, however, you are inmate number 176294-MCF,
celebrating eight to ten birthdays in a medium-security penitentiary,
maybe fewer if you discover the good behavior
that you have avoided most of your life.
I despise prison walls and barbed wire fences, the space
between neighborhood and cellblock, the roads
separating home and hell, the abuse that you substitute for
survival, the time you spend sealed in a living tomb,
and that we no longer talk like normal guys who grew up
sneaking into pool halls, pretending to be cousins.
Like I said,
I appreciate your friendship,
but I hate what is between us.