A lucky man I have been. A lucky man I am. I get to be old now and watch the rest of the world in a blur of uncertainty, unrest, unified, and not unified. With all my mistakes upon this spiraling speck of universe, with all my unfulfilled dreams and wishes, with all the modest achievements, I can bring no ultimate wisdom and leave no notable legacy. But, here is what I believe has sustained me along all the orbits made on this magical place we call Earth. Luck has of course sustained me, but the most exquisite and precious gift of sustenance has come from Love.

"The Bible" Spectacular just concluded on television recently. The 'Special' was watched by millions and it was ignored by millions. Raised in an area of the United States often referred to as the Bible Belt, Appalachia, Hillbilly Country, and other names that could easily be determined unflattering by many, I watched "The Bible" with special interest. All through my early years of lower class mobility and family separation, there was a bewilderment that only a child can know and have difficulty in expressing, the anxious feelings, the fear, the frustration, the great unknowable elements that controlled his life. There are two indelible memories that have remained in my mind with some relative clarity for all the years and have convinced me of their subtle manipulations of my life, my wanderings, and to the ultimate conclusion that Love must be the most precious gift.

Number one memory, there were the family disconnects, the broken home, the terrifying and ugly fights of Mom and Dad when they were together (all too brutally one-sided against my Mom). The memory is so clear, sitting, paralyzed by my fear, too small, too scared and stupefied to make any kind of difference, so smothered by the invisible walls that surrounded me. My sister was there in her own little hellish enclosure during these fight scenes but I was totally immersed in this electrified frenzy within me. The facts would later settle within me that these fights were the result of the times, the Appalachian poverty, no jobs, the economy, health conditions... My sister and I would spend time in state institutions until the times got better. In these institutions we would see the good, the bad, and further bewilderment. It is perhaps impossible to quantify the effects this number one memory brought to my later life.

Number two memory, there were my Southern Baptist church experiences that came during those times when my Mom would make another attempt to reunite us as a family. There were the loud sermons that conveyed to me all the many sins that would keep me out of heaven if I did not repent from my evil ways (it seemed that the preacher man was talking directly to me although there were hundreds seated in the big congregation). There was not the paralysis that overtook me during the ugly fight scenes, but there was a heavy emotional magnet pulling me to the front of the church at altar call time. "Just As I Am" and "Let's All Gather At The River" and other beautiful hymns were sung by the choir and by the congregation throughout the big church, and there went I, this elementary schoolboy, down the aisle with tears on my cheeks to confess to sins I knew little about... I just somehow knew that I must go and be saved. Memory number two would contribute to the enormous sense of guilt my later life would carry

These two memories have in so many ways shaped my life, have driven me to find love and family. What do these simple memories say about 'matching and mixing' and about a world anomaly? What do they have to do with the TV Spectacular, "The Bible"?

My memories are not so unique... The world offers up so many memories like my own, some much more terrible and laced with the darkest edges of evil. "The Bible" TV Spectacular reminds me that the world has been fighting since the recording of it started in our oral and written histories. The world has known poverty and family disconnects by the millions. Church leaders still sermonize about the wicked ways of man. Today, we have more sophistication to go with our wars and with our family fighting and feuding. What is relevant today and through the ages is the incapacity of people to find peace within themselves and among the nations... Pretty tough when you think about it: different languages, different cultures, different skin colors. There is so much mistrust, envy, and hate to be found in any city, town, village, and country. AND, there is Love...

Love! Faith! Hope! Love is the greatest gift of all, but it won't come to everyone in the right proportions during anyone's lifetime...that is, with all of our differences, how could it be otherwise?

When I look back on my Southern Baptist experiences and my family disconnects, somehow I know that Love and Faith have to become something that each individual finds on her/his own. My God-view has been altered since my childhood, but I still have my faith, fragile though it has been. I believe the Bible has truth and that different interpretations can be drawn from its pages. I believe in Jesus, that He lived, that He performed the acts attributed to Him, that He died for our sins, that He was resurrected, that all who believe in Him will live again after death. My early experiences in the Southern Baptist environment does not portray my God of today, nor does it make me feel cheated. Forgive the truism but we all do not believe the same. My faith was not destroyed by my childhood. My childhood experiences and my life up to now have simply clarified my faith for me. I cannot look at the orderly turn of each orbit of our Earth, at the Sun, the Moon, the planets and stars, and make a choice as to the 'chicken/egg' conundrum of our existence. I cannot look at the precision of a nine-month birth cycle and determine that we exist because of a 'big bang.' No, I have Faith that we exist for a reason other than just living, making our marks, and dying. Yes, we must exist in a matched and mixed world of happy and sad, good and evil, confusion and doubt, but, up to the very last mortal breath that escapes us, even in that last fleeting second, we can see the eternal light of God.

I believe that Love and God are somehow synonymous, and that tug at the soul that brings a tear of sadness at a sad book and movie is a tender reminder of Love at a most spiritual level. My search for Faith and Love took many turns, right and wrong. I was lucky to find Faith and Love a number of times, only to misplace Them. But that search has led me to this point in the world anomaly. This post is not about corrupting anyone's belief system, not about converting anyone to Faith, Love, and God. You are superfluously allowed your own turns, right and wrong, in life. It's just my hope that we all keep steering our lives toward Faith and Love. In that striving may we find our peace.

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

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http://www.goo.gl/pG2Fr (amazon.co.uk)

Charles Wells, Wellston Publishing, a good southern writer and twitter friend of mine, has given me permission to post a little story for you. It’s a story that hopefully you will enjoy and appreciate the homespun humor of it all. Charles and I are from the south, with me a bit more ancient than Charles, but his story here rattled my rib cage and I wanted to share it. Born and bred in Appalachia many years ago, I love the people, the purity, the simplicity of life in my native south.

We people in the south get a lot of teasing about the way we talk, our drawls and our ‘you all’s.’ A lot of  jokes have been created at our expense — we’re right up there with the Polish folks! It’s all okay for people to laugh at us southerners. We laugh at ourselves. Our gentility is fairly well known world-wide and gets its share of teasing. But most of the fun-poking goes to our hill people, to our rural folks who eschew formal education to work hard and play hard, who plow their fields and harvest some of the finest food for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables, who strum their guitars, ukuleles, banjos, fiddles, and ‘juice harps’ for a mix of music that comes straight from their hearts and souls. Maybe some of these good people get a little push from the home-brewed ‘white lightning’ and the beer they drink.

Now, the following ‘scholarly essay’ from my buddy, Charles, deals with the more colorful of our southern brothers and sisters. It’s my hope that it doesn’t offend anyone because surely we can laugh at each other. It's what makes this big country of ours such a wonderful place. We have freedom here. We can poke a little fun at college professors, CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents, government workers, people from the East, West, Midwest, North, and South. They're likely getting few and far between, but I'm betting we still open doors for the ladies down south. That doesn't necessarily mean that we don't believe in equality for women. It just means that's the way most of us were raised in that part of the country. Today, though, we're poking a little fun at my people, the southern 'rednecks.'

Sit back, take a swig of the suds, and read Charles Wells' account of “Billy Joe’s Night Out.”

                                                     They Call It Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer and Baptist Church
                     
      
There's a small town about 15 miles from where I live in Georgia. I'm not certain if it has a legal name of incorporation or not but I am sure the people who live there, all 119 of them, could care less what you call it. After all, it's their community and they love it. For writing about it, I'm going to call the town by the name most everyone around these parts uses, and that's simply, "Bubba's" but that's the short name. The full one is "Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer, and Baptist Church".

The reason everyone calls it Bubba's is probably because nobody has ever given this little area of God's earth an official title of any kind. Bubba's has been around about as long as Budweiser beer and the name sort of just blended on over to the location.      

Bubba's is located on a two lane gravel top County maintained road and has the worldly reputation as the origination of the old joke about "don't blink or you'll miss it". Every place is famous for something and that is Bubba's eruption to fame in that joke.

Bubba's main street is about as long as a four lane interstate highway is wide. There are no city services beyond volunteer fire and county sheriff but the unspoken reputation of the area protects these people well enough. The last fire that happened was one night when Billy Joe got drunk and then got hungry so he went on home from Bubba's Bar. Now don't get all fussy about drinking and driving because Billy Joe took a cab, which really pissed off Carlton the man who owned it, but that's another story for another time.

Anyhow, old Billy Joe got home and left the cab in the driveway with the motor and the meter running, then went inside his double wide trailer at 2 AM and proceeded to fry up a mess of catfish. His wife, June Ann, was sound asleep. She'd been up late watching a Honey Boo Boo marathon on TV so she didn't hear him come in. Billy Joe got the fish grease nice and hot then dropped in three cats he'd caught the day before at the river. What he did next is where the fire came from. He passed out cold on the floor in front of the stove and that hog lard grease got so hot it finally caught fire.

Fortunately, June Ann woke up smelling the smoke and realized the trailer was on fire. She grabbed her two children and some of their clothes, and then took them outside near the road to safety. She pointed a finger at them and snapped, "Now ya'll stay right here and don't move or I'll set your britches on fire, you hear me?"

When the kids nodded, she went running back inside the smoke filled house where she gathered up and saved her two cats and a parakeet from sure fire death. She got them outside with the children and then back into the trailer she went again. With much great physical effort and power, she managed to drag and roll her mama's old sewing machine out the front door, into the yard, and safely away from the burning structure.

By that time, the volunteer fire department arrived and told her to stay put and don't go no place. They'd do the rest. June Ann yelled at them, "Just make sure you run down the hall to my bedroom and get my daddy's old shotgun out of there before it burns up".

One fireman asked, "Well where your husband, Billy Joe and what's Carlton's Cab doing parked here in the yard with the motor running?"

Waving one hand toward the mobile home, June Ann said, "Hell I don’t know but I think I saw him lyin' on the floor near the stove but don't bother waking him up. He gets pretty mean after he's been drinking all night."

The fireman nodded then raced into the house. One of them found Billy Joe passed out near the stove and carried him outside to safety. June Ann told him to go put him back since that seemed to be where he wanted to be but they refused. Fact is Billy Joe owed Andy (the fireman) ten bucks and he wasn't about to let that slip past.

About five minutes and a living room sofa in flames later, a medic showed up and gave Billy Joe some oxygen out of a bottle. Pretty soon, Billy Joe coughed, gagged, spit out a pile of black soot and most of the last hours worth of Budweiser. Then he looked up at his home and asked with tears in his eyes, "Can they save the tires at least? They almost brand new."

The last crime that happened anywhere near Bubba's was the night Carlton's cab got stolen right out from in front of the Bar where he parked it most days. I don't really see no need to describe that incident to the readers though. I mean, ya'll have been paying attention so far, ain't you? 

So that's the story behind Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Beer, and Baptist Church. Maybe next time I write about it I'll go over some of the finer points of the neighborhood. Might even talk about the world famous Redneck Games held a few miles away from there. It's interesting I promise you.


Catch up with Charles on twitter @Charles_E_Wells or email at chasw@wellston.org


                                                                    Charles E. Wells - Wellston Publishing

“What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale” (An excerpt)
Posted on December 10, 2012 by  billyraychitwood1      
      
Like a picture that is worth a thousand words, it’s my thinking that an excerpt from an author’s book can reveal enough pro and/or con for a reader to determine whether or not he/she wants to read further. So, here’s an excerpt from my newest book, “What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale,” a non-fiction sketch of my life. It is a relatively short book which covers my Southern Baptist roots, the state of my faith, and some not so savory confessions of how I have lived my life. The book might very well be deserving of any label one wishes to put on it, but it is disgustingly honest and true.

Here is an excerpt from the Early Adult section of the book… 

The couple resides in a second floor apartment on a lovely tree-lined
street in Williamsport. It is Sunday afternoon, and Steven Ray is sleeping in
his crib just off the living room. The wife is ironing. The husband is listening
to classical music and day dreaming, idly chatting time to time with his wife.
It is a soft afternoon somewhere between bliss and boredom.

Somehow, the conversation turns to the first month of their marriage when
the wife left Washington, D. C. for Williamsport to await her husband’s Navy
discharge. The wife is telling him about an affair she had with an old high
school boyfriend during that month she was away. It is an attempt to purge
herself of the guilt of that not so long ago tryst. The wife is wrought with the
pain of the revelation but she must be done with her guilt.

The man’s world suddenly caves in on him and he is lost in the frenzied
twittering quake of his neuronal wiring. The man is immobilized by the wife’s
confession, hardly able to move and speak. He is mindful that the time frame of
his wife’s unfaithfulness happens to coincide with the birth date of Steven Ray
and this fact adds to the anxious frenzy within his mind.

Hardly able to breathe, the distressed man leaves the apartment and his
sobbing wife. He wanders to houses of in-laws and leaves abruptly, leaving them
to ponder his dazed, pained expressions. He moves mechanically as though willed
to robotic, mindless action. He drives aimlessly and finally sits on a bench in a park,
trying to get his brain to work, trying to figure out what he must do.

The thoughts tumble down to him: ‘Is he my son? Should there be a blood
test? Do I leave? Do I stay? Where do I go? What do I do?’ He finds himself
opening his memory pages to the feelings he has when his father beats his
mother. It is that same kind of feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.

The man feels lost like that little boy of yesterday.

He returns to the second floor apartment. His wife’s eyes are red and
swollen from her crying and she is so very sorry. For whatever reason, baby in
the crib, the honesty of her confession, her sobbing wish for forgiveness, or
the simple expediency of the moment, the man forgives his wife and stays. He
simply finds it easier to capitulate, to be done with it, than to continue with
the aberrations of his mind. It seems he is an emotional cripple, unable to
handle the traumatic matters that enter his space. It is his wont to place the
blame for his inability to handle stress on his mobile and uncertain past. Is it
time for the shrink’s sofa? No, he will not give in to that.

Strangely, life is fairly good for the couple until a Sunday afternoon
gathering at Lycoming Creek’s edge in Montoursville. It is a peaceful spot where
families gather, pull their cars to the water’s edge for washing, allow their
children to wade in the shallow waters, have their picnic lunches. It is a wide
creek, and the mother-in-law’s cabin sets among the trees some hundred yards
across from where the families, cars, and kids are gathered.

A beautiful day is about to get very ugly…

That dreadful ill fated Sunday afternoon begins with all the family
oriented activities the man would want. He drinks beer with his men in-laws. The
men are gathering, lounging outside on soft comfortable chairs, looking across
the creek at the families on the other side of the river. He listens to the men
tell of their different job experiences and participates with his occasional
anecdote laced with humor.

The sun shines in a near cloudless sky, and the women bring their plates
of goodies out and spread them on the picnic table for the men to prepare and
eat at their leisure. It is the sort of day the man has always factored into his
vision of family purpose and unity. He sits with baby Steven on his lap,
alternating his adult talk with baby talk.

The man’s wife sees across the creek a family she knows, takes baby
Steven from his lap, and walks through the shallow water to the other side. The
man watches as the wife sweetly engages a young couple in conversation there at
water’s edge. A peculiar sensation hits him and at once he somehow knows that
his wife is talking to the man who could be the father of his son.

The man sits, his mind filling with accusatory, hateful thoughts. He is
lost to all conversations around him. He is riveted to the moment and the
building storm within him.

The wife and Steven shortly return, and there is a confrontation. He
cannot deny his own disturbing thoughts and must know if he is correct in his
presumptions. His wife tells him the truth. It is the old boyfriend with whom
she had the previous January affair. She does not feel that her husband has a
right to question her innocent move to say hello and show off her son. She does
not give any priority to the husband’s own perception of yet another betrayal.
She feels she has done nothing wrong in saying hello to an old boyfriend and his
wife.

The words are cross, sharp, designed to hurt. There is no stifling
anxiety now for the man, just red-hot anger. The husband abruptly and with
little fanfare leaves the hillside retreat. He motors away from the family
gathering. He is not sure where he is going but he knows he must be away. The
harsh words between the couple and the quick revving engine of his car driving
away are not lost on the in-law family gathering. Except for baby Steven crying,
all is quiet on the hillside.

Clad in a white t-shirt, dungarees, and sock-less brown penny loafers, he
goes to a military club recently joined. It is a private drinking and eating
club for veterans situated in South Williamsport. There the sourly disposed man
drinks away the afternoon, gets rowdy, surly, becomes obnoxious with some
patrons, and is asked to leave. It is dusk. He is drunk. He is unsteady and
sorely without the faculties he needs to drive his car.

After he crosses the bridge into Williamsport and turns onto the street
where he lives, he drives into some parked cars along the curb, damaging three.
He is less than a block from home. He is still inebriated but stunned back to
some semblance of awareness.

He sits at the curb as police come and a crowd gathers. He fights with a
policeman when the latter tries to put him in a cruiser and take him to jail. He
is clubbed by the cop just above the right eye. Now, his t-shirt and pants are
covered with the dirt and blood of the scuffle.

He finds himself for the first time in his life in a jail cell, and as 
his sobriety slowly returns to him it might just as well be hell. His mind
begins with the scenarios. Some are woefully unclear in the focusing. He sits on
the hard cot in the small enclosure, his head throbbing with pain and
uncertainty. With his head bowed, he relives the hours of the Sunday afternoon,
the act by his wife he perceives as betrayal, the military club drinking as
plain stupid, and the ramming of the parked cars, the cop fight, as priceless in
‘Keystone Comic’ hilarity. He is not laughing, however. He is in a particular
black abyss of his own making.

The man mentally shovels on his guilt, plays the pity games, and
self-decrees that his life is over. He stands at the bars of his cell and weakly
yells at the jailer on night duty, pleads to be let out of his claustrophobic
nightmare. The jailer is kind to the man, tells him that morning will come soon,
that everything will eventually work out…

This ends the excerpt from “What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale.” Should
you care to read the entire book, please visit amazon.com (US and UK) and/or my
website/blog and scroll down the ‘Home’ page to my books. There you will find
the links for purchasing the book — paperback, kindle and/or other e-book
formats. Here is the link to my Website/Blog: http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

Where Did Christmas Go?
Posted on December 1, 2012  by  billyraychitwood1      
     
Okay, Christmas has not gone anywhere. It is still the birthday of Jesus, a great man, and, for many, a Savior. Jesus gave birth to the philosophy of Christianity and he gave us many golden rules by which to live our lives. He was a simple man with a richness of heart, mind, and soul who sought to provide all of us, the poor, the rich, the disabled, with a vision beyond ourselves and beyond our problems. From the teachings of Jesus came many branches of religion to satisfy the soul-needs of many.

For some among us, Jesus has little or no meaning beyond His mere existence. For some there is no religion that has meaning. For some there is only this life that we shall live. For some, death brings down the final curtain…an eternal darkness. These people among us have this right to their secular non-belief in God, in Christianity, in all that is Holy. The Christian and the secular can walk side by side, be friends and neighbors, be tolerant of each other’s views.

For me, I say Happy Birthday, Jesus! I say, Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year. I say, enjoy the lighting of your Christmas Tree and the presents you place beneath it. It is the Yuletide season. It is a holiday season. Christmas is a federal holiday. Our Constitution was formed by those of Judeo-Christian values. We allow for a separation of Church and State in our federal and state business. Why is this not enough.

From the polls we get the information that ninety per cent of us Americans still want a Christmas holiday, a Christmas tree, presents under the tree. We ninety per cent see this time of year as a time to spread love, peace, and good will. Is that really so bad? Why is it that some want to make such a big deal about calling a Christmas Tree a Holiday Tree? Why is it that a Nativity Scene is no longer allowed in certain venues? Why is it that the majority does not seem to govern our affairs because of the ‘suffering’ minority?

When does this madness end? When do the encroaching seculars finally take over our country? When does the politically correct get to rule every aspect of our lives? Where did Christmas go? Have we not given in enough to the these minority groups? Can we still keep in place some vestige of our heritage as a nation? I know changes must come as we outgrow some primitive laws on the books. Some of our language must change when it is so obviously insulting to some. Some things just need changing. The difference between conservative and liberal does not escape me, not does ‘far right’ and ’far left,’ nor does ‘moderate,’ ‘progressive,’ ‘extreme.’ Neither of these groups will ever win all the political and social battles, but could we just call ‘Time Out’ for this beautiful season that is now here. Most of us will, but could the zealots call ‘Time Out’ as well. And, yes, I know the liberals want to blame the conservatives, the ‘talk show’ fringe, certain news channels, and it likely doesn’t really matter to most of us. It just seems to come up each year, this issue of ‘Christmas Tree’ versus ‘Holiday Tree,’ the issue of ‘Nativity Scene Displays,’ the issue of ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy Holidays.’ Guess we can say both, ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy Holidays.’ It just bothers me when some retailers warn their workers only to say ‘Happy Holidays’ because ’Merry Christmas’ might offend someone. So many of us have become hesitant in uttering something so naturally spoken over the years.

Christmas will never be for me the way it was so many years ago. I’ve aged and the season in upon me and past me before I know it. I overheard an argument about all this ‘Christmas Tree’ and ‘Political Correctness’ stuff and it just bothered me. Guess it’s kind of natural for an anachronism like me to be bothered.

Guess it’s kind of natural for an ‘old dog’ like me to wonder, ‘Where Did Christmas Go?’

Hidden Within
Posted on October 15, 2012  by  billyraychitwood1

Exploring the dimensions within myself! Inviting you along for the ride, should you care to come. Who knows? Maybe something useful can be gleaned.

Some younger readers of this post will likely find no lucid relevance to their own lives but might gain some insight into the working of a mind still ticking away the twilight seconds. Hidden within this time-pressed body is one of the darkest, most menacing demons it’s been my misfortune to confront. Meet my number one demon, Guilt. This bleak gnawing beast has been with me since the beginning of my thought processes, no doubt an atavistic part of my quaint DNA. Guilt has been with me since my Bible Belt days in Appalachia, in truth nourished by those very disquieting days of Southern Baptist fire and brimstone, of family disconnect, and of mobile nomadic yearnings. Guilt has ruled much of my life, and it has not been pity and some nebulous acclaim I seek in the books I pen, in the simple characters and plot lines one might find therein. It is the endless desire to better understand the soul that is hidden within that Guilt.

If you do not already know him, meet a friend of mine, James Kavanaugh, the rebel priest who would finally hold his ‘masses’ at local taverns with some rowdy blue-collar workers, or, in one of his most beautifully written books. There were some doctrinal issues with the Catholic Church, and Dr. Kavanaugh would take a leave of absence from the Priesthood, travel to California in his VW Bug, and write books. He became a most popular public speaker, and a widely acclaimed poet-author. He is no longer with us. He died in 2009 at age 81, but he has left a beautiful legacy in his books and in his papers. The two books of James Kavanaugh I shall most remember are: There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves and Will You Be My Friend? It is his first book of poetry (“…Men Too Gentle…”) that awakens some part of me, that helps me to exist alongside my number one demon, Guilt...not to be rid of it but at least to dull somewhat its visits. It is my hope that some followers and friends who do not know James Kavanaugh will discover him as I did, particularly if Guilt plays a role in their lives.

There are other demons that are hidden within that torment me at times, the old standards, like, Prejudice, Pride, Greed, Selfishness, and Self-Loathing. There are good people in our world that seemingly have few demons, and I’m always shocked when one of my heroes or heroines fall from grace. Are demons hidden within all of us? It has taken a lifetime but I am beginning to believe that they do.

It helps me at demon-calling time to read James Kavanaugh’s Will You Be My Friend?

Will You Be My Friend?

Will you be my friend? There are so many reasons why you never should:

I’m sometimes sullen, often shy, acutely sensitive, My fear erupts as anger, I find it hard to give, I talk about myself when I’m afraid And often spend a day without anything to say.     But I will make you laugh     And love you quite a bit      And hold you when you’re sad.

I cry a little almost every day Because I’m more caring than the strangers ever know, And, if at times, I show my tender side (The soft and warmer part I hide) I wonder,     Will you be my friend?

A friend Who far beyond the feebleness of any vow or tie Will touch the secret place where I am really I, To know the pain of lips that plead and eyes that weep, Who will not run away when you find me in the street Alone and lying mangled by my quota of defeats But will stop and stay – to tell me of another day     When I was beautiful.

Will you be my friend? There are so many reasons why you never should:

Often I’m too serious, seldom predictably the same, Sometimes cold and distant, probably I’ll always change. I bluster and brag, seek attention like a child. I brood and pout, my anger can be wild,     But I will make you laugh     And love you quite a bit     And be near when you’re afraid.

I shake a little almost every day Because I’m more frightened than the strangers ever know And if at times I show my trembling side (The anxious, fearful part I hide) I wonder,     Will you be my friend?

A friend Who, when I fear your closeness, feels me push away And stubbornly will stay to share what’s left on such a day, Who, when no one knows my name or calls me on the phone, When there’s no concern for me – what I have or haven’t done – And those I’ve helped and counted on have, oh so deftly, run, Who, when there’s nothing left but me, stripped of charm and subtlety, Will nonetheless remain.

Will you be my friend? For no reason that I know Except I want you so.