What is a Friend?

What is a friend?  I will tell you.
It is a person with whom you dare
to be yourself.  Your soul can be naked
with him.  He seems to ask of you
to put on nothing, only to be what you are.
He does not want you to be on your guard.
You can say what you think so long as it is
genuinely you.  He understands those contradictions
in your nature that lead others to misjudge you.
WIth hi you breath freely.  You can avow
your little vanities and envies and hates and
vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities
and, in opening them up to him, they are lost,
dissolved on the white ocean of this loyalty.
He understands.  You do not have to be careful.
You can abuse him, neglect him, tolerate him.
Best of all, you can keep still with him.  It makes
no matter.  He likes you--he is like fire that purges
to the bone.  He understands.  He understands.
You can weep with him, laugh with him, pray with him.
Through it all--and underneath--he sees, knows
and loves you.  A friend?  What is a friend?  Just one,
I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself.
-C. Raymond Beran

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True friendship comes when silence between two people
is comfortable.

-Dave Tyson Gentry