the things you said, the time I dedicated to you--
it's ancient now, and half dead, but you have so many of my days, my hours
minutes, seconds tucked away into your pocket
and now it's underground with you.
I am where I am now because of you--you played a part.
the fact that I allowed myself to forget about you,
to shove you into a corner for the most part along with everything else that happened then.
all of that drama, that abandonment, I sort of grouped you together with that
and tried to discard you completely.
I knew you were unhappy. we would talk about it.
we would talk about wanting to die.
you beat me to the punch.
when I saw you this summer and we sort of stood a few feet apart,
avoided each others eyes, looked at the ground, the curve of my fingernail
and you half smiled and asked me three times how I had been,
I knew you were off kilter. but you were not my friend anymore. not a part of my life.
certainly not my responsibility.
you read me a story once over the phone about the last man on earth
and this giant stone statue of a woman that he talked to
and they conversed. It was dark, like something Kurt Vonnegut would have written.
you were so smart. you told me you liked me because I was just the right combination of cute and smart. I think you might be the only person to have ever thought that, and now no one does.
I won't miss you--that's not the right word, because you haven't been a part of my life for a long time.
but the fact that you're gone usurps me. you were permanent in my mind, infinite, immortal.
we would talk about suicide, I remember. Talk about how unhappy we were.
you beat me to the punch.