When your friends

 

            The ones who would yank your giggling head back into the car 

            just before it nicked a stop sign

 

            Who wouldn’t think twice about telling you to dump 

            whoever it was who was causing you so much grief, 

 

            Who didn’t laugh when your jokes weren’t funny

 

            Who admitted to cheating you out of five bucks at pinochle (years later) and

 

            Who let you rant for hours about your chiseling

            boss, the creep, and walked with you saying absolutely nothing 

            until they came up with a sure-fire foolproof way for you to skin 

            his ass without risk

 

            Who would do anything, including lending you a big wad of cash 

            if you really needed it, or putting you up when she threw you out

 

            EXCEPT

 

            (and here’s the sad part)

 

            Read the story you published in that dinky magazine nobody 

            had ever heard of even though you begged them in a bashful 

            non-begging but almost desperate kind of way

 

            It wasn’t that they weren’t friends, because they were

 

            It’s just that some things are too much to ask