I sit here in the car scribbling as evening drops down and the sun takes its whiteness from the windshield to reveal the smooth green hills and I write that I will not try again.
To expend so much time seeking and never finding; I could put away my work in order to search all of my life and yet never find what I need: a friend who sees me, who has time for me, who accepts my work as a part of me as much as breathing and the nature of my limbs rather than as a competitor of which to be jealous. A sharing. A patience. An understanding.
Is this so much?
It seems it must be exorbitent, exotic, outrageous.
Yet these are things I have always endeavored to offer as part of friendship.

It has made me valued, at times, but not understood.
And there is no return. There is no reciprocity.
I have grown so tired of the giving and no return.
I never get what I need.
I will never have what I need.
It is not possible for me, now.
I am berated for hinting at it.
I retracted once again.
I have. I have retracted, and more fully and fiercely than ever before.
Fierce and merciless
unforgiving is my outrage and my disappointment.