I used to feel much more betrayed
in most of my close friendships
before I uncovered my inner shallowity.
Since that discovery, though,
things have run far more smoothly.

People used to fail
to live up to my unspoken expectations.
They still do.

I still expect too much
and I still unspeak my expectations
far too often to be healthy
– I know that –

but one of my biggest expectations,
I realized, decades ago,
was that all my friends
should climb the same tree fort
day after day
week after week
if they wanted to stay friends with me.
If they didn’t make that effort,
they could just fall by the wayside
…which they did.

People would make efforts
but I decided I was being open enough
by being available where we had met
and built the bones of our bon ami.

Any other effort on my part was unnecessary.

Thus
was my gracelessness constructed
brick upon brick upon brick.

It took me a while to see the results
especially after the tree fort
was cut down.
Friends faded from my preoccupation
and I thought again about betrayals
and causes.
Oh! And shallowity.

I thought about that a lot, too.