Unshared Realities (Halloween)

There are times
I feel the need
for special privacy;
not even to say it
in a poem.

There are things
that happened to me,
things even that I did,
that rarely occur
in a normal life.

Past years in my youth
I confided some
of the more bizarre
only to closest friends.

Couched
between
the time disbelief
turned to acceptance
I saw the changes
in how my experiences
challenged their world.

This seamless existence
we tacitly accept
has blind spots wherein

things

that go

bump

in the night

are not

pets.

So, these events became
elephants in the room,
crowding out friendship,
leaving only awkward
platitudes and silences.

Beyond
the time of belief
we arrived
independently
at the same shore of loss:

of acknowledgment
of shared experiences
of mutual integrity
of friendship
of contact.

But, then
there was
the between
and
beyond.