I was seven years old when Randy Newman told me I had a friend in him and I’ve stalked him ever since. I’m joking of course, a seven-year old from Middlesbrough stalking Randy Newman is logistically impossible. I did see the movie Toy Story which is where I first heard the song You’ve Got a Friend in Me.I’m sure you’ve heard the song but if you haven’t, you’ll either have to go listen to it right now or humor me. We all need a friend whether it’s a friendship like Woody and Buzz which plays out as beautiful but I’m sure any therapist would tear those toy bastards apart for reasons I will not express here. Friendship comes in many forms it may come in more forms than we are even aware. I’ve found friends through work, school, bars, coffee shops…hell… I’ve found friendship in a lyric of a song, a stroke of a paint brush and I’ve found friendship in the resting ink on a page. I guess it depends what you want, no matter your social circle may my words be a friend to you but remember, we all have good friends and we also have shitty friends. I suppose a friend is a friend.

MY COMPANION

A room with no color

Lights couldn’t be duller

The food tasteless and bland

Playing records till I understand

Broken gate and a grassless lawn

Afternoon and the curtains are drawn

A church with no steeple

A bar full of people

Voices sound like static

Feels smaller than an attic

Pointless conversations

And meaningless frustrations

Told me to arrive at nine

Bringing along a bottle of wine

Having dinner with my closest friends

Locked inside a game of pretend

Wanting to be left alone

While staying on the telephone

A hotel lobby with hospital lights

A boxer left without any fight

Bible in the nightstand

Liquor in the fridge and movies on demand

Can hear the ice machine down the hall

As I sit up waiting for my wake-up call

Sat in a restaurant with no features

Felt like I was talking to her from the bleachers

Her words were spoken aloud

But I only heard them as sounds

Woke up next to her coughing

I felt nothing

A closed theme park sits on the hill

A school is turned into a landfill

An empty ballroom in a tower

A motel room by the hour

A swimming pool without any water

A motherless daughter

Sometimes feeling makes feeling hard to do

Especially when loneliness becomes a friend to you

Talking makes me feel dreary

Conversation shallower than Lake Erie

Thoughts deeper than Hell’s Canyon

Loneliness became my companion