Relationships

We usually begin in fire, the hot hours of hot days of hot months
in the hot, late summer of a long year. We
stayed up late, smoking and talking, singing in
too high a key, too low, too loud. You stayed
all night and slept on the floor, too
drunk or tired to make the drive at all.

I have always been poor; you all were always richer, drunk
with your own power, intoxicated by your own beauty, and I
fell for it, for I am a fool and greedy. I repeat the pattern with
everyone, every love, every friendship, every person turns fell
when I love them - because I turn suspicious, not because everyone
is truly sinister, malicious, cruel, fierce, malevolent, deadly. When
paranoia takes me over, the only solution is
to cut myself off; only isolation quiets the voices of paranoia.
There could be a need for tribes, for those of us who fear to
be alone and unwanted. Perhaps there
love is more tangible, accessible. Some can be
truly themselves only when they are full of love.
But I have not felt so, not really, truly
been loved or loving. You appear otherwise, I think, but
you all feel the same, needing love. And it has been been
months, years, since I have seen you.