Best-friendship means the interweaving of
Two minds, two personalities, two hearts.
But time has its effect, and without love,
Contempt sets in; the two halves tear apart.
Perhaps from simple fear do you refuse
To stretch your cobweb wings and learn to soar,
Or to unshackle me and let me choose
The path my soul would take, by far worth more
Than pleasing others who care naught for me.
You cannot bully me into a role
I hate; that is the cruelest tyranny.
Conformity would seem your highest goal,
My friend, but I want only to be free
And revel in the joy of being me.
November 1985
The title is a Latin phrase, picked out of the back of my ninth-grade dictionary, whose meaning was given as "let there be no envy or ill will."