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Thoughts on friendships once dear and then forgotten |
bridges once burned ( February 2008 ) How was I to know you would tire of our friendship, or that I would be living so far away from there? ( from Coffee in the Proctor District by Friend Stephen) it was a time of chaos and confusion brought about by the uncertainty born from our own excesses drugs and alcohol expectations unrealistic dreams and desires and the lose of innocence there was a madness about touching what was inside us and the world outside the walls of conservatism the dogma of unquestioning servitude and the endless rules to be obeyed like strait-jackets wrapped too tight it had to end and soon there had to be something more it wasn’t to be found there amidst all that was swirling turning all upside down breaking from a center that could no longer hold i stood on the platform taking a last look around the skid road alleys populated by the prostitutes and the infirmed downtrodden and forgotten in the proclaimed land of plenty all was to be left behind i lit another cigarette and then with a casual flick of the wrist set fire to my bridges i watched them burn collapsing as formless ash while the train pulled out they were gone not to be crossed again days passed into months then into years until finally they themselves became decades the final shreds of innocence lost in the continual changes foreseen but never as was to be expected and in return … the uneasy compromise the sense of some security although never really believed while we kept telling ourselves and others we hadn’t given up the fight memories are made with each passing moment we live it is what we choose on our own to remember for whatever reason known or unknown accepted or rejected that stays dormant within us they say we’ve mellowed out as we have begun to get older think it is more we are just tired and looking for that moment of peace and quiet that we had lost and then forgotten as if it never really was there at all it is then in the remembering that we remember once again thoughts begin to wander about dipping into the past now gone the opening up of many old doors long closed and bolted shut with silence age brings a lot of things with it a new perspective new questions the regrets of what we had done in a moment of passing emotions with hands now grown feeble a new reaching out begins to grasp again and hold onto this time what there once had been until carelessly tossed aside with no sense of the loss or knowing what it was about except . . . just something abandoned for seemingly forever that seems to be the way of thoughts and memories there is something we remember it in turn brings forth another and then yet another and another until gradually with it’s own purpose closed doors are unbolted then opened no longer forgotten is so much it is overwhelming at first slightly disjointed as we attempt to make a connection between the then and now never easy to put all the pieces together something still missing or at least out of focus as to what it was all about or what we thought it was about back then back then the dreams the expectations the innocence and the indulgences that changed them we haven’t forgotten never did we just banished them to the shadows that lurk out of sight of daily thoughts and concerns we gave up on them one reason or another so we believe but they are still there yet to be realized in some new way or meaning i think of those bridges once burned as they once were can not be crossed again but . . . can they be rebuilt not as some return to what was or passage to some future but . . . as a remembrance maybe an understanding of what the past was all about i am no longer naive with youth that innocence long turned to guilt so much has changed so much time and distance filled by events not shared but lived out nonetheless alone or with some other i look back at the remains is there anything that remains that may be built upon once again some new way of some the ashes have blown away replaced by green fields of silence in which no words will again be spoken or heard of those it is over done death has seen to that leaving only cold marble markers reminders of what has been lost wasted by whatever and shall never be regained re-lived again of others a foundation remains shaky unstable barren with the doubt if it could be built upon before it would again crumble and fall back into the silent distance of time too much remains to be cleared away with just some words thoughts that pass over so much there are the scars of wounds inflicted not completely healed nor grown over with a new life that would put so much to rest of still others there is hope ground both fertile and solid to sow new seeds of friendship to rebuild upon to make it stronger lasting than it had once been before from the bedrock that is me i carved out two cornerstones placed them by the river of the past chipped away was my own arrogance a pride filled by emotions and one-sided remembrance i opened up myself and found something worthwhile it is that something that has been put forth to firm up and brace a new foundation laid to be built upon will those bridges be rebuilt will they stand once again or . . . will time and distance with changes they carry bring them down to the ground leaving only crumbled remains not much different than the match once struck and casually tossed to burn away what there was so many years ago will the bridges ever be rebuilt can they be rebuilt will they be strong enough to stand to bear the weight of what went before will we cross them meeting in the middle with words of a friendship once known and cherished then soon forgotten i do not know nor will i ever unless i find the strength to try once more to rebuild bridges once burned |