My Friend

You can teach me math and words and how to tie my shoe.
To set a table, do laundry and read a thing or two.
These are things I need to know and learn the best I can.
These things help me learn to be a woman or a man.

But who teaches me the simple things like why I smell a rose.
Can I make snow angels or squish mud between my toes?
Who teaches me to play in the rain, and eat raw cookie dough?
About leave, stones, animals and other things I want to know?
Who teaches me that play is fun and how to do it right?
So others wont make fun of me and make me want to fight.
Teaching me should include some lessons in how to be just me.
In a safe, quiet place where others don't have to see.

Who teaches me that I have self worth and the right to be alive?
To fit into a world where it can be tough to survive.
Who teaches me I wont always be accepted just the way I am?
But helps me through doors to adulthood instead of doors that slam.

Some say its now "adult 'propriate" to want to walk in streams.
The world is made of not 'propriate things... I think the call them dreams.
Teach  me to be the best person I can be without taking the "me: away from me.
The person who does all this for me is caring and concerned.
He is the one I'll cal my friend. I know that much I've learned.

©1990
 

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