mmdcccli

Whatever I Become

There are babies
being sold (on
sale) at the Baby
Bizarre this week-
end, it says here:
All shapes, colors,
sizes, you name it!
A long time ago a
person I can bare-
ly remember other-
wise called me my 

friend. And I threw 

those words away 

with what I am
sure was quite a
puzzled look. We
were just hanging
out. (Boredom, bur-
don, sadness, iso-
lation, sadness,
isolation, burden,
boredom.)  You
may think it meant
nothing on the sur-
face of it all, but
peel it away like
an onion and it
becomes a heart-
breaking and eye-
opening mystery.
Like when, years
later, I catch those 

words again, they

are aimed right at

me:  My Friend.

Only this time
instead of toss

ing it back like

a puzzle I got a
bit of a tingle,

and kept it to

myself.  All 

warm and 

happy.  Some

times, as I hear

that same phrase,

am called by that

same name, the

tingle never goes 

away. From the

moment I hear

that same phrase—
my friend—then
the tingle might
become a sad
muffled heart-
beat, at best.
Or cold hands.
Or the strong
desire to run
away and yet
to never run
away. Not
from this
friend. Be-
cause. Friend.
A word that can
be so versatile,
like bedbugs.
Or the deflation
of the Turkey
Day balloons.
Or a check
that intro-
duces a week
of havoc by
bouncing.
Friend means
many things,
not unlike

refrigerators 

that cannot

presently be 

afforded, or
a desk and a
chair neatly

tucked into a 

tiny new place 

I call home, a
tiny place
that screams
every day for
a desk, a chair,
a refrigerator.
It can’t hold
much, this mini
ature room, but

yet, on the whole,

it is much
improved by

the presence
of friend (or,
an even more
complicated
word: friends.
The box I
live in then
suddenly be-
comes friend
too; living in

it, breathing 

in the many
scents of
this, your
box, like
the recept-
acle full of
the trash
(yours and
yours alone)
that gets col-
lected in the
gold-colored
rectangular
trash receptacle
that you found
the day you
moved in, on
the sidewalk
between here,
home, and the
shelter, which
was also a 

sort of home.
I suppose it
turns out that
home and friend
are both quite
complicated
words that
might be
defined
in many
different
ways. Like
most words.
This, the
quite un-
intended
(or it was
never given
the forethought
to be included
in any plan of
mine) place
in which I
now call
home, is
growing
on me. As
home and
friend, I’d
further say.
Like basal
cell carcin-
oma, say 

(the best 

kind of 

cancer, 

which I

have per

sonally had

removed, 

twice thus
far, from my
face) grows

ever so slow

ly into you.
Right here, 

between this
wart and this 

mole. It’s
not really a
wart. It’s a
skin-flap. A
thing, like can-
cer, that might
remind us of
certain folks
who came be-
fore us, in our
own family
tree, a branch
or two atop your
name. Where
it is also writ-
ten, in tiny
font under
my name,
that I must
become many
others, perhaps
different species,
a schizophrenic
(I’m already a
Gemini, so
there is pre-
cedent enough
to consider these
seemingly strange
words). Everything

everywhere else 

in the world

thing (homes,
friends, new
hopes, etc.)
are abducted
by aliens. The
friendly kind,
apparently.
Which makes
it, I guess, poss-
ible that they
will come back,
someday. Per-
haps at least
to visit.