You're walking down a leafy sunny street in the middle of the holidays. Most people are eating lunch with their families and aren't out and about. Those you do see nod and smile. They aren't friends but you have seen them around and they do the nodding thing and you do the nodding thing.
There is an actual friend-type person that you are on the path to running in to. It's a planned rendezvous. A tryst of sorts.
You keep asking yourself "What makes a friend?" How does that label get assigned and attached and maintained? Songs tell you a friend is someone who walks in to your house like they live there but the police will do that in cop shows you see on TV so it doesn't quite sit right. Others give analogies of gardens and tending flowers but your vivid imagination extends that to weeds and barren soil and other parts of the analogy where worms turn the soil to better it but are still icky.
This person that has been placed in your line will soon be in your sight. The thing with sight is that you don't always see what is in front of you. There is a plumish hue when he appears. As if the sun is setting in his stead. There is a warmth that you feel when you see photos of people having picnics. Not that cuddly corny warmth but the feeling of the sun on your skin, even when all you are doing is looking.
You call him an actual friend but your actual friends sigh and roll their eyes when he ultimately emerges in the conversation. Those are the deep and meaningful talks resulting from too many ciders and an unyielding urge to tell someone or anyone or maybe an actual friend, about him.
It is nothing new to you that he controls the entirety of who you are when you two are "us". At first it seemed like he was leading you in a tango. Sexy and strong and dominant and all the time caring that you are ok. He will look after you, so you follow.
You aren't sure when but the dance became more like a fight. You both wrestled and he slapped you. He loved it. You broke a little. Then you danced again.
Each time, you saw the glow as he approached and forgot the darkness when he left. Always thinking he brought the sunshine with him when he came and realising he brought nothing but the darkness which he left with you when he'd gone.
This will be another crossing of paths. Maybe a paving of cow paths. It always happens and starts to feel like that is what happens. You cringe. That should paint you a sign. That should bend the neon tubes that illuminate a Vegas like detour but you will tread the road.
He comes and talks and it wouldn't matter if you are there. You are inconsequential. Did you want a coffee? My shout. He talks through you and you feel the sound reverberate over and around and fizzily through your particles. What once felt like a buzz, now feels like a zap.
He leaves and there you are again walking through an empty suburb with trees. Yes, trees. There are people. They are strangers. There is sun in your eyes and you sneeze. Everyone is locked in their house with families that they tolerate. You wonder why it is getting so dark.
Break it. Break it so it is so broken that it can never be fixed again. Break the trees and their damn streaming rays of star light. Break the path you walked over and over again. Break your shoes that you walked it in. Break your rose coloured glasses and throw the jagged lenses in the street so car tyres will be punctured. Break it all.
Then start again.
