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 a

friend. And I threw 

that word 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 mystery.
Like when, years
later, I catch these

words again, they

are aimed right at

me:  My Friend.

Only this time
instead of toss

ing it back like

a thrown-up meal
I got a bit of a 

tingle, and kept it 

to myself, all warm 

and happy.  Some

times, as I am called

that same phrase,

the tingle never 

goes  away.  From 

the moment I hear 

it—my friend—the

tingle might become 

a sad muffled heart-
beat, at best, or 

cold hands, or a 

strong desire to run
away and yet to never 

run away.  Not from

this friend.  Friend.
A word that can
be so versatile,
like bedbugs or
the deflation
of Thanksgiving
parade balloons
or a check that 

introduces 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 

one calls 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

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, my
box, like
the recept-
acle full of

trash (yours 

and yours alone)
that gets col-
lected in the
gold-colored
rectangular
receptacle 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
place in which 

I now call home, 

is growing on me. 

As home and
friend, I’d
further say,
like basal
cell carcin-
oma (the best 

kind of cancer, 

which I have 

personally had

removed, twice 

thus far, from 

my face) grows

ever so slow-

ly into you.
Right here, 

between this
wart and this 

mole.  A thing 

like cancer 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 written, 

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,

things (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, the

poor humans. 

Perhaps at 

least to visit.