The Effects of Friendship

Daily Prompt: A Friend in Need

July 25, 2013

Finish this sentence: “My closest friend is…”

Photographers, artists, poets: show us FRIENDSHIP.

Pinky promises,

Unbroken

Constitute friendship.

Cliched phrases, like:

It’s not what you say

But what you no longer need to say

Define friendship.

An assured listener;

Someone to come home to,

Figuratively and literally,

If you’re lucky,

Is the promise of friendship.

Someone who judges you

And tells you why

And loves you anyway

Is the hallmark of great friendship.

A sudden connection –

A sudden realization

That this is what you’ve been waiting for:

That’s friendship.

A stream of insults

That only indicate

That you have the right to mock

Asserts friendship.

Knowing, hearing rumours,

Which ones are false

(And which ones are true)

Comes with friendship.

Listening to the same thing

Ten billion times

(Well, okay, not really)

And not cutting them short

– Well, not always at least –

Shows the strength of friendship.

Promising to be there forever

Because you can’t conceive of anything less,

Or maybe because you refuse to,

The “lie”ability of friendship.

Smiling on nearing them

When you’ve had the worst day

Is why we love friendship.

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Feeling Supplanted

Daily Prompt: Green-Eyed Monster

Tell us about the last time you were really, truly jealous of someone. Did you act on it? Did it hurt your relationship? 

Photographers, show us something GREEN.

The first definition I found of the word ‘jealous’ online may not be the best, but it describes what it means to me perfectly.

Jealous: Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position.

It’s a difficult thing to find people in this world to love and who love you in return. I had recently connected with someone on a very deep level; I felt almost as if we were one person. My best friend was going through her own problems at the time and was very lonely, so I started taking her along on outings with my new friend to make her feel better, and it worked. But it worked a little too well. Soon she started spending more and more time with us until, one day, I called my best friend, only to find that the two of them were hanging out alone. Meanwhile, my new friend had developed a crush on my best friend. Talk about feeling supplanted.

My best friend is a wonderful person. She is beautiful on both the inside and outside, and is smart and caring and funny and a good conversationalist, things I had never really had cause to be jealous of because I had my own little refuge – my group of friends, including my aforementioned new friend. However, current events caused me to feel like my tiny bit of territory was being encroached upon, and that gave birth to an acidic jealousy.

I did nothing. I told myself that as a friend, if I really loved either of them, my duty was to help them grow and make new friendships – not cut down the ones they managed to form on their own. So I said nothing and waited, which prevented my relationships from coming to harm, but burned me. Slowly, however, the situation improved. I still have all of my friends in my life. And even though I sometimes still feel that familiar feeling of jealousy welling up within me, I manage to suppress it, because I know that what I might gain by giving it expression would be less than what I’d lose – two of my best friends and a lot of love.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/daily-prompt-green-eyed-monster/

Plants vs Zombies

After months of waiting, I finally got to spend some time bonding with my brother recently. And what better way to bond with a brother than Plants vs Zombies? Drafting up plans of attack while consolidating our three main lines of defense, we watched with bated breath as the pedantic zombies were beheaded and fell to the ground with the grace of artists, lacking the imagination to change their straight-on attack strategy(?).

Three days and several hard-won battles later, we have finally won the war, thanks to the never-fading vitality and potency of peas. And maybe of our relationship as well.

In response to Trifecta’s weekly writing competition:

http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/05/trifecta-week-seventy-eight.html