4 Years (aka, ode to an ex best friend) Poem.

Lisa B · Jun 1, 2009

(This is a poem/short story/reflection on life)

4 YEARS

I never had been so sociable as the night I met you in the bar – the 12 vodkas really helped, you know?

Really.

Do you remember the look you gave me? Oh! You do?? Yes, I know, pure evil it was, wasn’t it?! I don’t think I did much worse!

Ha. Funny really, wouldn’t you say? Our first glance and we were already staring one another down as though mortal enemies!

Funny, when 2 weeks later we were best friends!

Funny how the party we were attending turned out to be so full of two faced wannna bes – your “friend” and my “partner”, best friends.

Funny how their screwing US over bonded us. Gave us conversation.

I never did like to bond.

And here we are, 4 years later!

We’d seen it all!

Friends came, went, wandered around and disappeared in-front of our very eyes – i’m sure we blinked and missed a few of them. But we laughed.

We laughed SO hard.

We were so alike, you and I, so similar. Each striving for the best for our families, for ourselves, everything to live for, everything to love for and an open door that swang both ways in and out of our respective homes.

I never minded that you hated talking on the phone, we saw each other enough, we spoke online, we emailed, we drove everywhere – miles, just for that couple of hours!

And yes, here we are. 4 years later.

Hard to believe it took that long to catch on.

4 years and 2 sore feet later. All that driving. All that petrol. You didn’t have the car.

4 years and several failed relationships later. All that advice you didn’t want to take.

4 years and 2 worn out shoulders. Dry eyes. Numbed heart.

You squeezed me dry like fresh oranges rung to the core – every last drop. Drained. Lifeless.

It took me a while to wake, but here I am, 4 years later.

All those friends, lost, because of you.

All those ideas you copied, bent, tainted, re-used and claimed.

All that success and life and money and ladders to climb, which you climbed hungrily as you let me hold the bottom so as not to let you fall.

You never were going to pull me over when you reached the other side – You pulled the ladder up.

I let it go.

I didn’t want to be where you were anymore.

Greed sits uneasily on your face.

My head rests peacefully on unweighted shoulders.

I am free now.

4 years, for this?

4 years, so much time, too much investment.

I am happy where I reside. Inside.

Here.

Now.

Alone.

I breathe.