When we were together
all those years ago,
staring at a grainy TV screen,
but thinking we were
watching a cinematic
tour de force,
atmospheric and beautiful,
you had your visions of
who you wanted me to be —
a witty, loquacious knight
in shining armour
with a Rabelaisian edge who
was creative and spontaneous,
or an optimistic
tavern bard who entertained
and loved his audience,
and I had my ideas
of who I wanted you to be —
someone who didn’t punish
me for being this brooding,
introspective loner,
someone who cared and
didn’t just put up a façade,
someone I could introduce
to my family without
judgmental glares
and gavel wielding.
We were
broken beyond repair,
but masked our hurt
with inside jokes, asinine
sarcasm and gossip.
But as age melted into age
like the first song
of a concept album seamlessly
merging with the next,
those forces beyond our
control showed their
demonic faces, streaked
red and black,
and haunted us with
visceral cries urging us
to give into those
dark places within
and plunge into the void.
I fought them passively,
and still do, and I don’t
know how, but you
waged war, scratching and
clawing them with a feral rage
until it burnt you out,
left you hollowed out,
wishing on a shooting star,
screaming for mercy.
Everything fades eventually,
blue meets grey,
and red meets black,
but when they told me that
you died the way you did
yesterday, I didn’t know
what to feel as I pictured
your aunt shedding crocodile
tears, and your
drunk uncle making
a scene, the people who
brought you up, but also
destroyed you. I was selfish
because I didn’t reach out,
but selfless because reaching
out would have made us
rehash the past, arguing
over whose fault it was,
the usual toxic blame game,
the sorrowed narcissistic
victimhood owning,
wearing our tears like
gold medallions or worse,
garlands. We didn’t love
each other, but we could
have loved each other as
friends, and perhaps
helped each other carry
those weighty tomes
of regret, tracing
scars with fingertips
of concern, just short
of a graze, but more than
a mere passing touch.
but I’ll never know the
answers to what if or
why as I picture the burning
pyre, the orange-red embers
carrying with them
a dying vivacity,
the priests singing a chorus —
your swansong
in which you’re conspicuously
absent, a curtain call
without cheer, twigs
snapping, mourning, and a
certain someone miles
away, wishing he held you
in his arms and said he
was sorry, and that things
would be alright before
it was too late.
Photo by Alex Motoc on Unsplash
Ordinary Person 
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