The Distance

of eighty miles is nothing, 
a two-hour drive barely.
If our friendship is something, 
I should go monthly.

There are people who travel weekly
from New Jersey to Flushing, Queens
only for dumplings, or a homely straw mat.

I am not one of those
since I am too lazy, 
a true tortoise,
with no ambition of outrunning a rabbit.

We can talk online
for hours on things mostly trivial.
A Southeast Asian singer, who hasn't incurred 
gossips for years and years, 
suddenly married a beautiful actress.
We giggled incredulously
about life's absurdity.
Which beauty secret is effective?
All beauty secret is a fraud to a degree--
nothing can fight the passage of time--
but some are more fraudulent than others.
Is love durable?
Is betrayal forgivable?
Is a regional war possible?
And sometimes it feels so insufferable.