Here the Words End

I don’t know how to let it be,

How to let sleeping dogs lie,

To let biting dogs bite,

Let the wound close,

The words end—

The words are not ending for me.

Because I wish I would have said more when I had the chance,

I wish I would have seen the times I didn’t speak as the only opportunity to before the door would close,

But she did not speak either,

Until, for her, it was too late for me to.

I never run out of the words to ask myself why a friend would excuse herself from the behavior she condemns in others,

Why a friend would not understand that one can love another even when they are apart,

That one can find herself on a different road and not think of it as driving away but as taking a detour,

And that detours are not personal attacks.

And when these words come to me time and time again,

I think that maybe we just have different ideas of what a friendship should be:

For me, it is something you can always come back to even when life pulls you in different directions, and it is as if no time has passed as you fill in the gaps;

For her, it is something that needs constant kindling, for when the embers turn cool she does not trust that they will light again, and without trust there is no more want of fire—something self-fulfilling.

The problem is that the fire never died inside me,

That I still think of her when I think of the future,

That I still love everything about her that I always loved,

Even though she decided to be part of my past,

Even though she decided that I did not love her enough.

And it’s not that it wasn’t enough,

But it wasn’t how she wanted it.

I wasn’t how she wanted me to be,

And for that I will always be sorry,

Sorry that I disappointed her,

But I think I will always be angry,

Angry that my others friends accept me as the friend I am,

But she couldn’t, she who I loved like a sister.

But how can I choose her either,

She who has different ideals of friendship and sisterhood?

It is not even worth asking—

I’m not able to choose someone who has removed herself as a choice.

We watch each other from afar,

One broken heart to another,

Except I cannot see hers so I speak only for myself—

The part of myself that grew from her is shattered—

I no longer want to look in that mirror—

But I do anyway because I miss looking at her.

I’m tired of the way fragments of her haunt me,

When I need to sleep and need to move on from it.

But part of me is still on her couch, so sure that she meant it when she painted a picture of our lives intertwined in the distance.

She may have lost sight of me for a while,

But I never lost sight of it.

Maybe I should have said so.

Maybe

Maybe

Maybe the dogs are different breeds

Maybe they’re dead and reborn anew and apart

Maybe they’re not biting any longer

Maybe the wounds healed but we will never forget them

Maybe the words are allowed to end

Here the words end.