My friend is an addict in recovery.
Keep it in the day
he says.
.
I try.
.
I channel your impulsiveness
and tune out my tendency to plan.
Double up on your spontaneity
and dial down my foresight.
.
This
I realise
is going to be hard.
.
We worked because we were complementary.
Our relationship built on the fault line between mutually exclusive competencies.
.
Where you thought fast
I thought slow.
When I asked why
you said why not.
When I warned you not to try and do everything
you showed me we are capable of anything.
.
While you pushed on ahead
I brought up the rear.
You started things
I finished them.
You knew what to do
I figured out how.
.
I was confrontational when you needed time to process.
You took us higher
I kept us grounded.
You stayed up late
I got up early.
.
A collaboration held in balance by the tension of our tightly held hands.
A counter-balanced coupling.
A venn diagram.
.
So what now?
How am I going to be able to do both?
.
Am I supposed to be both anchor and air balloon?
Prescient and present?
Sensible and silly?
.
How do I keep it in the day when I have a lifetime of lonely concern ahead of me?
.
What would you do if you were still here and I was dead?
Why am I so sure you’d figure it out?
Know what to do.
.
I think maybe you wouldn’t over-think it.
You’d dust yourself down and crack on.
Little stopped you and you stopped for little.
.
I wonder.
Did you ever wish it was me instead?
I wonder.
.
I hope you did.
.
But you probably didn’t.
.
Previous > On Coping #48: The camel’s back | Next > On Coping #50: Dicing with death
On Coping is my story of surviving on the sidelines of cancer.
It begins in March 2022 with On Coping #1, written the day after my 41st birthday. The day my wife Imogen, the mother of my three children, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
On Coping is the story of what happened next.
One of your most beautiful George although - full disclosure - I've just read it after spending Sunday evening drinking a bottle of red and watching the 'Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' so that's probably coloured my melancholy mood. The best life and art is about the shit that shaped us, I really believe that, please keep writing xxx
Poignant poetry with great perspectives. Thanks for posting.