leather let go

I wish I could put on a brave face and declare that all is well in change, but I can't. There's too much happening and strings being pulled in a thousand different directions attached to feelings that evoke strong emotions within me. Last night I thought of the airport, being there amongst friends and bidding them adieu. I put my arms around their necks and squeezed tight as everything funny, memorable, happy, and care-free drained from me like water down the sink. It's too close now, at an uncomfortable standing-point it glares with intense eagerness as the days flip themselves over to the next. I realize that they are the sturdy masts that hold me up when I can't turn to family for comfort and ease. I get frustrated with familiar relationships when they don't stand tall like my friends because now there are impossible expectations that I have unconsciously built a wall with. I'm not sure anyone new to me will be able to breach the perimeter of that wall either. I look at my mother and beg her for help the very few times I ask for it and if she doesn't respond with that mysterious manner that I have grown so used to, my frustrations get the best of me and we're right back on that teetering 4X4 that has restlessly awaited conflict.
As I walked around a small part of my new campus yesterday in the heat all I could see were unfamiliar red faces, glistening with sweat. There was no comfort there, no recognition or emotion. Blank faces with wandering eyes that would sweep like rolling marbles across my face which reflected everything small and lost. They say that you meet your life-long friends in college and that they are strong relationships that have been molded by the maturity of adulthood, but if I could go against the mold and ask for one thing, it'd be to keep the friends I have and go through life with them. I plan to make friends in college and to hopefully bond with people who are as real as I can find, but the leather twined around my left wrist forgoes all of that and keeps me tied together with those who share its meaning.