Student Publishing Program ::

Benjamin Swanson

Just Friends

Are you speaking English?
Am I?
Then how do I not understand?

Strange, how merely
Two Words,
Can be so horrifying
Yet so compassionate:
Just. Friends.
I felt as if a crushing blow
Had just slammed into my chest.
As if God’s icy tentacles had reached out
And frozen my mind,
I found I couldn’t speak.
Has nothing in this whole ordeal
                                                    sunk in?
Has nothing had any meaning?
3 months,
You still don’t know me.

Then you said,
“Does this change
                              anything?
Does this change anything at all?”
Had the Vatican moved to Mecca,
Had Ferdinand not been shot,
Had the Cuban warhead been fired,
Less would’ve changed,
Than what is now
Between us.
Like a blue-eyed electromagnet,
The electricity that once drew me to you,
Has been inexplicably shut off.
For the bond that pulled us together like magnets,
Has reversed our charges,
And now,
No matter how hard we are pushed together,
We will always slide apart.

Does this change anything?
It changes everything.
It changes it all.

Am I speaking English?
Are you?

                                                                    Hello?

[TABLE OF CONTENTS, LHS CLASS OF 2009 EDITION]