When Friendship Becomes Segue (Revised)

You have lived sharp turns. Something dies this way. The mirror is laughing. It has become sickening. And “Robert is uncertain,” echoes it your mind. But a man must die. A man must compromise.  These realities reverberate in consciousness, they ping-pong intensely, while agreeing but somewhat resentful of the implications.    

“You dance so shyly,” she said.

That was Amy, Robert’s adolescent friend, they’ve kissed twice. Those atypical moments when two are filled with energy, reaching playfully, and the moment turns into something romantic.

By unusual circumstance, where music is catalyst, while dolphins are gleeful.

“You dance so shyly, Robert.”

It was years of admiration or pantomime gestures where overt exploration would seem childish. They knew for penchants or undercurrent frustration but love was viable, knit in concrete, or too reliable to risk losing. It was quicker laughter or quicker sentiments so alive a feeling killing them. Those weighty irons, those ferric expressions, while destiny becomes its radicalisms.

“Why are you melancholy?” says Amy.

“The moon has left the skies, or something is orange, while life is premature.”

“You are hiding, Robert.”

“The gut is impure this telescope is crooked or this line tends to wiggle.”

Robert continues: “Amy, why have you died? Where is your life-vest? If we parted now: Would you regret the disappointment?” Amy was silent or speaking in aura when she smiled, sipped a soda pop, touched Robert’s face and spoke:

“Where is pain beautiful? this whale we carry. Those sunbeams dislodged or parakeets in bed while lemurs are staring through our window. This lesson we share this kleptic likeability or this violinist obligation—to have nourished incredibility, this friendship promise, in exchange for helium or detainment or something we must prune and primp and polish. Something natural becomes something premeditated!

“If but those songs so lively it aches into caricatures, skyglass, or something too terrible to confess; our lies to mirrors our rich deception into gravity you tend to ignore. You have adored this creature. You have made mortality immortal. You have abhorred naysaying thoughts. Into something peculiar, into wintry senses, as kittens and pups sleep softly.”

“Amy, pain is unique, it rests in feelings, so torn so drowned so resuscitated. Our aesthetic portrait, our magnificent whale, too alert to heart-fire. If but a bed, to dress or redress, at least creatures touched or mourning; our tragic lemurs so forced into jungles but so graced to chase through cities; our liabilities our nuisance and deliverance; to hear a smile as it withers lowly where a willing hand offers its fuss; such pruning by latitude such creative polishing or surreal furniture; if but negative we know dying, if but optimism we know living, so unconcerned with natural chemistry.” 

You have unraveled a mannikin—this furious creature, and it has such depth to wail. It screams like demons. It aggravates like desperation. The tides are too high, but you are running to catch them, after something incredible a minute after awakening.  

The flowers are cringing the sky isn’t helpful and you imagine it shall shortly disappear. If not to grab the net, if not to tug the bell, if not to reach like the soul is falling!

“Amy, something was unlocked those plants as oxygen but we have failed to breathe. It seems so unfair where a relationship meets its road in such a way that two must embrace or depart.”

“We shall not break skies, Robert. You have complicated complexity. If we embark, and the sun is unhappy, we shall lose our garden.”

You sit in chills. Visions become jasper. If but to articulate something making it segue—into forests and meadows, into brooks and creeks, if but a palm capturing each tear. Those rosary ideals. This cursed planet. Where miracles are knitted, or catastrophe is invited, while two become everything ever desired in this universe.

“You look puzzled, Robert. Why do you harass yourself? You have always been such as those sorrows—watching or pained delightfully or running me into a frenzy. You paint with humans. You see us differently. We are not every ideal.”

“We long into madness, seeing in us this failure, while convinced our nights are glitter. If but this merry-go-round, if but this hysterical clown, if but evenings mourning or days at adventure. But you, Amy, this magnet running this voice in clouds this species unadorned by vice; to live in us or to parade down misery while so charged we can’t escape.”

You retreat into tacit snakes at something terribly frustrating while sudden to unleash something tragically gray: “Do you feel earth, Amy? Do you hear death? It has mandolins and harps into caves and arcs as one grips a terrifying clarinet.

“It was my vibration the pain I reject as it stormed into gristle and marrow and muscle; this free loneliness if but to preserve happiness while it becomes the death that we crave. You seem so content with mangling nativity while inside something is yanking and mulling my guts. If but to adore you, if but such promise, into something so devastating: those higher reaches this endless horizon as birds chirp and crickets are unheard where music is depleted. But sweet life this dungeon or sweeter hell this fusion if but to touch without such terrors.”

You lay claim to trying this life, into portraits by terrible trouble, as gazing into Amy or watching something too forced: those interior pianos—as they sketch her face—with Amy there caressing something delicate. This fair creature, this oily crystal, where life and death and resurrection take place in her eyes. But a man running, for love is obvious, while both of you battle this great griffin: such bottom-feeding, to address something ignited, this ignescent fury.

Amy breaks silence: “It becomes an unsung sermon, gazing into you, while so comfortable it is hard not to panic; you give emotion so prior to feelings, while there seems something abstract about you: such nameless characteristics, or such joy unbelievable, where one dares to evaluate eternity. If we dare to un-paint us, in order to repaint us, as we move from life to threat—will the whale become vicious?”

You spin in climates or review Amy’s words with such fear unredeemable. She comes close. You two sit in silence—while reminiscing over several years. The pavement is watching. Those sounds are audible. It has come to another kiss; but the sound is listless; and those waves are curdling and churning into a vignette. If but to speak reassurance, if but lies were concrete, where two are searching for something absolute. In this great uncertainty. In this warming fire.