That “friend” is now so widely verbified
Online (I friended someone new just now)
Calls friendship into some degree of question
Does it not? Perhaps “that ship has sailed”?
And does this not imply a shipping charge
If ship is also verb instead of noun?
But even online friends who seem asea
There being a ship, can dock and disembark
If trouble is taken (trouble this time a noun)
Or if the absence troubles (there a verb).
If my own absence troubles me enough
I’ll board friend’s ship ere we should closely pass.
And what now, of that “ere” I just inscribed?
Should “ere” ne’er come, do I not err thereby?
A chill creeps in my salty air today
As friending and shipping slip across my screen.
Remembering where a friend has often docked,
I chart a course, and digital drifting be damned!
The worst that might befall’s an empty dock
But then it’s e’er (not err) that still may come.
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I find myself ruminating over the hyphen in "that-ship".
As an aside, "ship" is nowadays not only related to transport, because it is the shorthand for relationship, which is not a verb, unless one talks about "shipping."
This functions in the world of japanese anime. Apparently whenever otaku opine on the possible relationships that their heroes and heroines might enter into in the course of an anime series (where it's usually not so obvious who will get the girl), this guessing game is called "shipping".
I'm not sure, since I am an older generation otaku, and thus not really that familiar with the new trends, but I have come across something like this on fan forums and the like.