Don’t fuck with my friends. Do not hurt them or tell them they are crazy.

They are not.

Don’t fuck with my friends. Don’t swindle, peddle, take, or steal.

And don’t you DARE break their hearts.

Don’t fuck with my friends.

Don’t lead them to believe they have bad judgement, draw negativity, attract the wrong people or jobs or circumstances. Do not take advantage of their immense capacity to feel and their great power to give. They are so very special and so extremely delicate in all their strength. Although they don’t let on, I know they’re just as easily bruised as you or I. More, even. Because to know the highest highs, one must also be capable of experiencing the lowest lows.

They know it all.

Don’t fuck with my friends. Don’t ignore them; don’t place blame on them for your own demons.

Don’t make them cry.

Don’t fuck with my friends. Don’t insult and don’t make them feel un-talented, un-beautiful, not-thin-enough or not-sexy-enough or not-worthy-enough of greatness. Pulling them down does absolutely nothing to raise yourself up, even though that’s your alternate agenda. It’s so much easier to throw your pain at someone else, anyone else, instead of sitting with it as it slowly transforms. And even if you’re self-aware enough to know, even if it is SO obvious that all you are doing is pummeling them with the trash piling up in your soul, they can’t necessarily see or accept that. They are IN it. They hurt.

I don't want appropriate. I want real. Share on X

I can hug, I can talk, I can cry alongside them. But I can’t heal them from your sickled sword and it enrages me that I’d even have to. They are stardust and sunshine, the waves in the ocean and the dew that helps the flowers grow. They are the hope of a new day and the long exhale as the week ends. They’re the birds you can barely hear chirping over the car horns and angry screams, but you know they’re there, and the knowing is a sort of comfort in the chaotic entanglement of city cacophony. They’re newsprint on your fingers, a souvenir from the adventures of a curious mind. They’re the giggle you can’t quite stuff down and the tears that come whether “appropriate” or not.

To hell with appropriate. I don’t want appropriate. I want real.

I want the laughs and the tears and the talks till 1am that can’t wait a second longer. I want the waves and the dew and the bird songs even if I can’t always hear them. I want the charcoal on my fingers, delicate stains from a morning well spent, and questions asked, and a mind expanded just by saying yes, I will turn that page.

Don’t fuck with my friends – because they are the ones who are making this world come alive.

This post was originally published on october 8, 2012.