What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends

Julian Brolaski

Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love?

Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue

Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough

So flatter I my fever for the one

For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun.

A rose is arrows is eros, so what

If I confuse the shade that I’ve become

With winedark substance in a lover’s cup?

But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough.

If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear

If I my tongue in lockèd box immure

Blame not me, for I am sick with love.

     Yet would I be your friend most willingly

     Since friendship would infect me killingly.