If You Are My Friend

If you are my friend why do you weigh the balance of your dollars against my own?
Why do you deck yourself with jewels to shine when you are shown?
Come plain and simple, my friend, into my heart.
Clasp my hand and do not leave any marks
Of makeup kisses upon my face.
I seek beauty only in your true embrace.
Let me come close and peel you like the onion’s layers
And through your tears show me the fruit of your affairs.
I will hold you without question and won’t let go
No matter if you are begging me to go.
Like the Fates upon their loom 
I will hold the wisps of your most fragile hour
And weave them to a cloth stronger than any power
That man has made or God
Has set upon this world,
To shield you from the strongest storm or lightning hurled
From Zeus’ raging hand upon the mount,
And I will not accept payment in any amount,
But in the same breath of love blown at a tender age
When you searched my heart for friendship and not my wallet’s wage.
But if you must lay your prized possessions on the balance against my own
Lay for me your friendship in the cloth that I have sown.

Copyright © 2005 Prabhath Avadhanula