A Few Best Friends

The first, a quiet cup of mocha. Unexpressive at a glance, however, take a sip and the sweet chocolate envelopes your tongue, always followed by a wave of bitterness. Yet by the time you’ve finished the glass, that sugary aftertaste is all that’s left. Absent: even the mere memory of that bitter taste. Leaving you waiting for more.

The next, an addition. Like simple math, 1 + 2 means 3 times the fun. Three times the energy. Three times the confusing cluster of emotions once it’s over. Perhaps it was always meant to be a duo, three minus you.

Part three was like honey. Sugary and oh so exciting, for one was only supposed to take a single spoonful for a cough. Not two. Not five. By the end, you’ll be sorry you drank the whole jar. It turned out the honey was never for you, particularly. In truth, it was merely one of many little jars, all neatly packaged and tied with a bow. All bits meant to be given away. That honeycomb you’d been promised was never truly there, no matter how much the syrupy flavor on your tongue begs to tell you otherwise. That little jar just savored being perceived as far more than it was.

The most important of all is like a dagger, dangling over your head by a thread. You must work with it, for if the string is cut, you will perish as well. You and the dagger are soul-bound, fused together in life and in death. There are frays in that piece of string, parts of it that once nearly wore out. But it is stronger than it looks. Throughout your life, you will have two choices: to let the thread go thin and snap, allowing the dagger to take you with it once it plunges down--or to work with it. To strengthen the thread into a sturdy rope and wield that dagger as a weapon against any you need protection against. This last friendship is eternal. And between you and you only.