Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: friendship

  • to be close

    these are not tales of wanting to be close
    but tales of need
    tales of nothing else will do
    tales of we are losing anyway
    I tail off when we try to make sense
    of what is happening
    when all we have is positivity all the while
    listening to others complaining about
    the mundane, the unimportant, taking
    suggestions from people who have
    no idea pretending to make notes
    in my invisible notebook – my no-book
    wearing an invisible grimace as they speak
    they don’t have to travel an hour to
    talk to an expert, they don’t have to prepare
    their bodies for impact, their brains for
    impact, their nerves to be wracked
    but we pretend that is okay
    all the while wanting – no, needing –
    to get away, to return home,
    wherever home may feel today –
    home is where I can tell these tales
    before we trail off and stare into space
    lost together but tied together
    in the want – no, the need –
    to be close.

  • authorial intent

    when did you start loving me?
    can you pinpoint the exact day
    and time, the particular thing I
    did to make you look at me
    differently? I want to know
    exactly what it felt like then,
    exactly what it feels like now
    that it is familiar, now that it
    is normal. Show me how you
    see me and we will compare
    notes – reader interpretation
    versus authorial intent.

  • be with me / to be with me

    I just found two poems I wrote, two and a half years apart, about two different people, and they fit together perfectly, and have almost the same title with only one word different. How very odd. It’s like one poem answers another; one person answers a call that they didn’t hear at the time and that wasn’t intended for them, yet still they appeared.

  • to be with me

    I had a dream you were with me.
    we were holding hands
    and people were saying that’s not what friends do
    but they were wrong.
    because an unnamed personal disaster
    had befallen me
    and I just needed someone who knew that
    to be present enough to touch my skin
    to hold my hand like it’s a thought that needs soothing
    to ward off all others who wouldn’t understand
    to be with me.

  • for the boys who are like big brothers to me

    0. 

    I’ve never known brotherly love.
    I didn’t grow up fighting with siblings
    or learning to ride a bike down my
    street with a mocking grin and a
    steady hand at my side. I grew up
    with the knowledge that there was a
    gaping hole where a boy should have been.
    Where my big brother would have been. 

    But you,
    the boys who are like big brothers to me
    – even the younger ones –
    are always working to fill the gap. 

    I.

    The boy who said I could call him at 3am
    if I needed to. The same boy who dreamt
    I died and called me to make sure it
    wasn’t true. 

    II.

    The boy who can always tell if I’m not okay
    and always checks on me. The boy who
    supports my writing and encourages me. 

    III.

    The boy who goes out to eat with me and
    listens. The boy who I always laugh with. 

    IV.

    The boy who was my inseparable friend
    all the way through school – Sonic,
    Animorphs, Power Rangers, marbles.
    The fiercest loyalty on the playground. 

    The boys who laugh with me even when
    my jokes are terrible. The boys who make
    me feel like I belong somewhere, like I’m
    important. The boys who look after me
    and let me support them, too.
    The boys who will always matter.
    Thank you.

  • I can’t shake the thought of us

    I can’t shake the thought of us
    coming to each other’s rescue
    It’s what you always do for me
    and I want you to need me, too.

  • K

    I will ask if you’re okay and give you
    permission to tell me the truth,
    the whole sorry, harrowing,
    despairing, disarming truth
    and you’ll give me the same
    liberties in return.
    I’ll accept your words
    as your reality, no judgement.
    We are friends who
    are free, who
    are human
    in the most
    brutal ways, we
    see the things others
    avert their eyes from, we
    experience life like we’re on
    fire, like it’s about to end, like
    we’re on the run and we feel
    it in our backs, in the
    fractures, in the
    curl of our spines as
    we feel the weight of our
    baggage and we fight it, fight it, fight it.
    We are young and strong in all the best ways,
    we adventure, we have fear, we are
    misguided and we don’t care. This is how
    we write our stories, with every
    step, with every journey,
    with every tattoo,
    with every exhale.

  • Second String

    I’m stuck somewhere between
    an apology and a “fuck you,
    this is the way it is” because
    you are the way you are
    with each other; there is no
    look-in for me.
    So why be surprised if I
    don’t always turn up to play
    second-string to your special
    friendship? There is obviously
    nothing you need from me
    and that is nothing new.