firewater

[{Helga}]

you've been friends since you can first remember,
since the 'cool thing to do' was to

pop heads off of yellow dandelions and to spin around
in the schoolyard until one of you got too dizzy.

~

you're the type of friends who used to stay up too late
trying to camp out in his backyard

to see if you could spot the alleged 'glowmonsters'
which ended up being little orange fireflies.

~

he's always been the rebel, the troublemaker, the one who
etches one-word phrases into desktops

while the teacher watches with upset in her eyes.
and you're the one to bail him out and say it was your idea.

~

by the time you're both seventeen, nothing has changed, really,
because he's still getting into shit and you're still

the one covering the lies. even when he shows up at your house
completely smashed, you promise that 'he's just sick'.

~

you pretend that you don't notice how bad he's getting -
he's an eyesore, really, that once-handsome face

now a victim of insomnia and alcohol, hazel eyes turned glassy
and full lips chewed into mangled rubies.

~

it's your job to take care of him. you're both eighteen now,
at the prime of your life and ready to start living, right?

but no, because he's beginning to realize how far he's fallen
into the shadows, and you're starting to wish you had done something sooner.

~

some nights, you stare blankly at the sky and just think.
you wonder if he'll ever stop replacing oxygen with drinks,

and between thoughts of all the late-night whispers and
lazy carousel days, you hope that maybe, just maybe, he will.

~

he finally tells you to look at him, to really look at him,
because he's turned into a fucking monster -

"I am looking," you say, peering into his red-rimmed eyes,
"and I only see my friend."


©2009 =Miss-Deathwish

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