Off The Shelf

Off The Shelf

I approach friendships

With a two step process

I take two steps back

Every step forward.

I approach friendships

With caution in my voice

And hands and words and

mind.

Caution is necessary.

I approach friendship with half truths.

I give less than half

of who I really am

I use it to gauge

Just how much of Me

a person is willing to take.

I approach friendships

with lies

Exactly the same way

I’m truthful

With passing strangers.

I tell my friends only

part of the story

Waiting for them

to piece back the pages

With tape and tweezers

And waiting for them

to throw out the bits that

they don't like.

I approach friendship not unlike

The way I write

Skipping through the beginning

To the middle, editing

Altering myself,

not really lying

Just waiting...

To be underlined, circled, rejected.

A book,

no one wants to read.

I guess I slotted myself

neatly, long ago,

Up up up on a High Shelf

Of "Things To Take in Small Doses"

And I stayed there.

With cough syrup and existentialism,

and a great deal of

my own special interests

Ones that I've labeled

with a big red

TOO MUCH sticker.

So now I approach friendships

like one would a wild animal

Cautious and

fearful of it running away.

I muddle facts about Me

and make them something

less than they are

Not greater or better

Not worse.

No grandeur or humility,

just half truths and quiet lies.

Less than the true sum of my parts.

I approach friendship

with the expectation to fail.

And maybe it's learned

Or maybe it's me

And maybe it’s sad

But at the very least,

I approach friendship.

And maybe, that's somewhere to start.