Spontaneous Conversation

He says that it wasn’t fair.
He says that it’s obvious that is him in the poem.
He says that I didn’t have his permission to take his stories.

I try to laugh it off, but I think he’s serious.

I tell him, he should be flattered.
I tell him, I believed his stories.
I tell him, that’s what writers do.

We steal from people around us.
Plucking little snippets of conversation,
mistaken drunken sentences,
bad behavior,
wishes,
dreams,
secrets
we watch for them and we take them and put them down in ink
where they live forever.
We photograph your words, and then hang them up for all to see.
Naked.

She tells me she loved the poem.
She tells me that she is my muse.
She does a little ballerina twirl when she says this.

I tell her, yes.
I tell her, good. There will be more stories. More poems.
More words and deeds captured in my net.
Sometimes we take it and we twist it.
We make your truths, lies
your untruths, whole.

This is the price of friendship with people like us,
the word-smiths
the story-weavers.
And most times we are too selfish
too destructive
too drunk
to even be good friends.
But you keep coming back,
so I guess we can’t make everyone happy.