Roots in the Soil of Everyday Life

I long for friendships that are made and rise into adulthood,

not the fleeting kind that glow for a season and fade,

but the ones that anchor themselves quietly,

growing roots in the soil of everyday life.

I want friends who will teach me how to play poker,

and laugh when I bluff too boldly.

Friends whose guest room is half mine already,

a place where my toothbrush and slippers wait like I never left.

Friends who deal the cards between glasses of wine,

between board games and long conversations that drift

from nonsense to confessions without anyone noticing.

Friends who may be older in years,

but carry the same youth in their laughter

that I feel in my own chest.

Friends whose wives and husbands

become my own friends too,

a circle of warmth that feels less like company,

and more like family.

I want the kind of friends I can call at strange hours,

to carry on a joke from last week

as if no time has passed at all.

Friends who send me a photo of a song on the radio,

a song we once screamed at a bar years ago,

and still sing as though 

the chorus belongs only to us.

I want friends who see me in my darkest hours,

and know my silence like the back of their own hands.

Friends who complain about the ache of living,

but do it while leaning against my shoulder.

Friends who call about something trivial;

a brand of hot wings I swore by,

or a gadget I said they needed, 

and stay on the line for hours

because one story led to another,

and neither of us wanted to hang up.

Friends whose children know my name,

and ask when I’ll be coming over again.

Friends who fold me into their lives

so gently, so naturally,

that I forget where “their world” ends

and “mine” begins.

Friends who will tell me their joys,

no-matter how small they are.

Friends who will stand by mine,

and who I can’t wait to call

when something makes me smile.

Friends who I’ll laugh with until we struggle to breathe,

who catch every innuendo I make

because they make the same too.

Friends who I’ll buy concert tickets with,

because they’ve told me

it was their favourite band in college

and they’ve played me 

every album, every song, and every beat.

Friends I’ll call the moment I hear

they’re back in town,

because waiting to see them feels impossible,

and being with them feels like slipping

into the rhythm of a song

I’ve long been dying to hear.

Friends who even though they’ve told me their life story, 

and they know mine by heart,

still manage to amaze me

with every small detail they share.

Friends who have a picture of us

snapped by a stranger in passing,

framed in a corner of their house.

And it might be a bit blurry, 

maybe my eyes are half-closed,

but it‘s still proof of a moment

none one of us wanted to let go.

Because my heart beats for a kind of friendship

where our lives meet when it’s the right time,

where adulthood doesn’t shrink the world,

but keeps stretching it wide.

Where we keep a collection of these moments

blurry photos, late-night calls,

carried across years.

Not perfect, not polished,

but true, unshaken.

And if I am lucky,

I will spend my life gathering them,

and calling it love.