always options

“as long as you are alive, there are always options,”

he said, &

i hated him for his

optimism—

he’d done so much for me &

he wasn’t even family,

he was just a friend—

and

i hated him for his optimism—

certainly,

we had gone down different roads,

what with he being a couple of years older &

having moved to the city a few years earlier—

though there was an unspoken reverence i feel

new-fish-transplants had for

the older-still-surviving-transplants,

i still hated him for his optimism—

i spent time in other countries,

having seen poverty that i knew he’d never seen,

so i hated him for his optimism—

i grew up working class &

knew that every family argument came down to

the lack of money being something which

burned us all to the core,

so i hated him for his optimism—

this guy lived on a mattress in his friend’s place,

having already lost his mom &

having had a a major creative project fall right through to the

sewer,

so i hated him for his optimism,

but i loved him for taking the time to tell me—

i loved him for seeing in me

someone who he knew would listen—

i loved him for the mutual friendship that we had &

in that,

optimistic, pessimistic,

whatever—

with the support of a good friend,

there are always options.