Our steps are tentative as we try to feel out our way.

We're trying to be friends and neither of us quite know how.

It isn't that we don't like each other, goodness knows, that's not a problem.

It isn't that we don't have things to talk about. We do.

It's that, a very short time ago, we were so much more than friends. And it isn't the feelings that have changed, it's our lives.

We have to find a balance. We have to find expectations that are realistic, to discover how much we can tell each other about our new lives before the information starts to hurt. Find out how much support it is reasonable to give, or to ask. Decide where we draw the line when we talk about feelings -- how we can convey 'I love you' without actually saying it.

It's strained. It's awkward.

We struggle for words, where we used to struggle to stop talking.

It's tempting to not even try, just to let it fade away. But... we are used to each other, part of each other, integral. Our conversations, the presence of the other has become ... needful. Without it, there is a hole.

So, we are trying to part without parting, to keep closeness, but at a distance. We are trying to be friends.

Probing
Poking holes in security
Why can't you just leave me to be?

Strobing
Pulsing light revealing
Depths that have been hiding

Drawing
As if sucked in by unseen forces
And all the while you talk of horses

Trusting
With knives I don't care
But dreams I did share

Tearing
Do I want you to go away?
I'd really like for you to stay

Wond'ring
Why have you done it?
What was there to get?

Changing
Since you knew my name
I was ne'er the same

Screwing
You mess with my head
I move and I'm dead

I don't hate you
I don't despise you
It just happened all too fast
And we can't undo the past
I know you don't want me to care
You know I can't your burdens bear

What shall we do?

Please don't tell me yet
Oh, I want to know
But really I don't
'Cos this hurts me more
Than I'd ever show

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