FRIENDSHIP

The day I flew back to Troy Roscoe the nice wolf bit Luke’s hand while I was in the sky. Last night I wrapped the gauze between Luke’s fingers in the ugly light of a brand new bathroom, timid but tight, tied it off with book binding twine. The good people want to talk. You aren’t a family but be loyal and insane anyhow because,  why not - why not be an ecosystem built on love and pain instead of contracts. Friendship. Elise finds me in the conservatory between the wet plants and the white plants. We are tired and walk around. Years of walking around, years of plush chairs, sweet drinks, comparisons, contrasts. Mack’s eyes never open all the way. Lowell rides the exercise bike in a Betty Boop shirt. And my parents, they’re my friends. We fight and we fight. We wish we knew each other perfectly, without having to try, without having to try to try. I wrap the gauze with disconnect so the open flesh doesn’t make me faint. Somewhere in Albany Roscoe is sulking around, tired and ashamed. But he’ll be back. He’ll find the bloody gauze in the trash and bring it out to show us, hoping we will play.