An article on the internet asked if I have any friends. I have a question for this article: What is 'friends'?

I know what a lover is. A lover is someone who cuts you with knives and uses your blood to nourish a garden from which he grows flowers to please you, and you smile coyly behind Venetian blinds as you watch him tend it, his muscles pushing against his skin in the sun, breaking his body for the production of beauty in your honor.

I know what a baby is. A baby is a tiny person who should live in my house. Baby sits on my hip as I carry it around using only the strengh of one arm; the other arm is not for baby but for lover, after dark, when the wolves cry out and rain pummels the spires of our castle.

I know what a brother is. A brother is a man-boy who shares your totem spirit and plays witch-warlock with you in the laundry room. Brother makes fire and worships you as Ra.

I know all this but I do not know friends. I asked my personal assistant Darooda if she knew this word, but all she did was shrug and point to the television. (Darooda does not use language as we know it, but a series of glottal squeaks and squeals, which drives the children wild with delight!) It occurred to me eventually that she must have been talking about the television program ‘Friends’—but isn’t that program about impoverished New Yorkers wearing colorful layered outfits and coping with AIDS through song and dance?