Poem Collection - MythOfHappiness - 9. What are friends for?

I enter the din and clash

Of the cafeteria

Clutching my tray

And glancing from side to side

Searching for somewhere quiet

By quiet,

I of course simply mean less loud.

There is no truly quiet place

In this packed room

In this crowded building

I find a spot,

Near the back of the room

A table, almost empty

Save a single Goth Chick

Truly, the high school promised land.

I point myself to

That one true place of peace

And forget to watch my feet,

Or rather watch the feet of

The boys in the letterman jackets

One such boy

“Accidentally”

Sticks his leg into my path

And I trip,

Sprawling onto the laminated floor

This is not the first time.

Not to brag,

But I am quite adept at falling

Onto this particular laminate floor

And I manage to keep my tray unspilled

I grumble unhappily

And rise to my feet

Turning to the laughing boys

And glaring at them darkly

Particularly the one who tripped me

He is tall

At least six foot

And he has brown, mousy hair

And I have know him

For a long time

Jamie stops laughing

For a moment he looks almost regretful

But then one of his leather-sleeved buddies

Gives him a hearty slap on the back

And the look vanishes into an ugly smirk

I turn back to the table

Because I still had my dignity

And I sit across from the Goth Chick

And we don’t talk

And I eat my lunch

Days pass,

Like they do

And Jamie keeps doing what Jamie does

Singling me out for some unknown reason

For his daily torment

And it’s not all that unusual

He’ll do this sometimes

Usually all it takes is for him to notice someone

And that someone would be his favorite for a while

But I was different

He took some strange guilty pleasure

In torturing me

I could see it in his eyes,

Always fleetingly remorseful

At his remorselessness

And then it came to a head

Maybe three weeks after

That first “accident”

Three weeks of daily abuse

Then, nothing

For two whole days

I saw him

And he saw me

And he left me alone

And I wasn’t sure why

Then, on that third day

He stopped leaving me alone

In fact, he stopped leaving me alone

In the biggest way he possibly could

And that was even more unexpected

After fourth period gym

I stay till everyone’s gone

Because I prefer to shower alone

And I don’t mind missing half of lunch

To do so

I take off my kit

Stuffing the sweat-coated garments

In the bottom of my gym bag

And wrap a towel around my waste,

Heading for the showers

I take the stall on the far right corner

Like I always do

And toss my towel over the waist-high partition

The water is ice

After all the other boys are done

I don’t mind.

I like the cold

It keeps my mind focused,

Gives me a moment to think

And time to think is so rare in school

Suddenly I’m aware of movement

I spin around and am shocked to see Jamie

As naked as I am, standing in the middle of the room

He frowns at me and I feel strange under his gaze

Like he’s looking at me in a way that’s not quite ok

He comes up to me,

Enters my stall

He’s close

Too close

I feel uncomfortable

He touches me

On the chest

Just above my left nipple

And I see that he’s totally hard

And I don’t know what to do

And then he grabs my shoulder

And pulls me to him,

Forces a kiss

And then shoves me back

Into the tiled wall

He looks… terrified

He turns

And he runs,

Actually runs

Out of the room

I turn off the water

And stand, dripping

And thinking

And it makes sense,

It really does

I suddenly feel bad for Jamie

Forced to live a life that is wrong for him

And I can’t believe that I feel bad for him

Because we have history

So much sour history

Jamie and I were friends

In Middle school

Then he started hanging around

Those People

And he ditched me altogether

Just all at once

One day we were friends

And the next he barely knew me

And that made me feel

Really, really bad

And angry too

And sad

And so fucking angry

And like I wanted to cut my own throat

Because he was my best friend once

And then he wasn’t

Then he was just some guy

I saw sometimes

In the hall, or the cafeteria

Always surrounded by his new friends

But I’d still sometimes catch him

Looking at me

When he thought I couldn’t see him

And I still remembered

That one night in his bedroom

It was just a fling for me,

Experimentation, all kids do it

But I guess it was more for him

And it was still more for him

And I feel bad for him.

Because we were friends once

And even though I don’t think

we ever will be again

I still feel bad for him

For getting himself stuck like he did

So I decide to help him

Help him in the only way I know how

By forgetting all this ever happened

And pretending like I don’t even know him

Just another stranger in the halls

I guess

It’s the least I can do,

I mean,

We were friends once.

And what are friends for?