Friends are god.

I'm serious.

Open Heart Surgery is a newsletter devoted to exploring metamorphosis, unravelling, questioning and healing. I write essays and poems in service to personal and collective liberation - the personal, political, social, cultural and spiritual realms are all present here. This is a space for divergent thinking and open hearts.

- A Small Sunday Newsletter x

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"And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. 
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend. 
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. 
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? 
Seek him always with hours to live. 
For it is his to fill your need but not your emptiness. 
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. 
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

- Kahlil Gibran, On Friendship, The Prophet.

I’m lying in a fort of her pillows under a lime green duvet. A citrine crystal, a rose quartz, a beautifully rounded turquoise stone whose name is a mystery to me, and a piece of black obsidian stand guard over my energy. I sip peppermint and liquorice tea. She’s lit a candle for me, and rose incense perfumes the room. There’s something uniquely tender about a space of rest created just for you by someone you love. She is the kind of friend who is made of honey and cinnamon. She is sweetness and care embodied.

I’m exhausted. Naturally, I decided to write something. Writing feels like rest—or at least therapy, though I probably need a yoga nidra more than metaphors right now. It’s been the kind of weekend where we’ve been playing therapists for each other, holding emotional space for wounds that should never have been inflicted. Family is often a complicated space, as is the world when you’re sensitive, absorbing everybody else’s unprocessed (I’m just going to say it) shit.

We had grand creative plans today, the pair of us. But it’s been a week, and my body decided this afternoon to remind me that I have chronic fatigue. All it took was a simple morning walk in the rain. An acupuncturist once told me that rain and wind are not good for my constitution—too much dampness makes me sick. It’s a shame, really, that I live in New Zealand.

Friendship is underrated. I often sincerely assert this opinion in conversation. In a hyper-individualist, capitalist world that glamorises self-sufficiency and a kind of narcissistic self-obsession (thank you, social media) or worships codependent monogamous relationships, (where one person primarily is expected to meet all of our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual needs) true friendship is radical. Community is radical. I’m talking about a kind of love and connection that transcends the transactional nature of most modern relationships.

I’m staying at a friend’s currently, for a week. I’m between places, technically house-less, but not on the streets. My life is packed in a few bags again, and my overwhelm is high. It’s all temporary—I have plans to find a home again soon—but for now, thank god for the kindness of best friends. Her partner is away for a month overseas, so we are cohabitating in her tiny, overpriced flat in the city, sharing meals and chores, hopes and dreams, as well as our truest current burdens.

I’m currently single and very celibate, with little desire for a relationship - there are too many other areas of my life to rebuild. My best friends have always offered me the closest thing I would call unconditional love, a kind that is not tangled in the webs of condition and obligation. Of course, there are some expectations - friends won’t tolerate the kind of shit we often dump on partners or our family.

Friendship is a loose contract, unlike our family ties. A loose contract means that both parties are there by choice. With misconduct or a lack of accountability, either party can easily leave the relationship. Sure, friends, for some, can be toxic or reflect unhealed patterns within ourselves. But in my experience, partners are more likely to bring that out.

There is a purity of close, modern friendship, a liberation in being seen and supported by humans outside of your familial tribe or romantic relationship. In having multiple people to turn to when we are in need of support, solace or perspective, or when we want to celebrate something. I’m not anti-nuclear family per se, but I am certainly convinced that it takes a village to grow a healthy human. I’m also convinced that community is vastly underrated nowadays.

It appears that we’ve forgotten how to build villages.

Today I just want to publicly acknowledge my friends, in all of their forms, as forces of love or god in my life. These relationships, with all of their messy, healing and transformative aspects, are gifts from god/the web of life.

- 35mm film of two of my very best friends (who may also be part angel). Aotearoa.

Edit: (I have some poems on death to publish, which felt a little intense today, so I decided to write a warmer piece. I hope you enjoy/resonate. Go tell a friend how much you appreciate their existence in your life.)

Much love,

Lau x