How I wish that were all.

“I don’t have any money.”
“My mom needs a ride to work.”
Would all be better than
What you say to me now.

I’d rather take the lies.

Because now, your excuses are
“Andrew won’t let me.”
“He gets mad when I go out with my friends.”
“He’s just a jealous person.”

And as much as you know
He’s mentally abusive, not jealous.
And as much as you know
You’d be better off without him.

You and I know you’ll never leave him.
Because you really believe that
Having a truthful excuse is better
Than lying to all of your friends.

Now, only silence sits with us,
And not the comfortable one,
At least not on my end.
Making the space between us
Seem like hundreds of miles.

It’s not that we went separate ways.
We still do the exact same things,
Just not with each other,
Just not anymore.

We once considered each other family.
Once we even joked that we married.
Where there was one of us,
The other was never far behind.

Now, you sit in your room
Watching that stupid television show.
Now, I sit in the living room
Playing that stupid video game.

Our paths once ran together,
Like two pieces of a different puzzle,
Fitting together in perfect harmony.
Now, the edges of each piece are seen,
Messily overlapping one another.

It’s sad that we don’t talk, really.
When you think about it enough.
Once we called each other
Friend, Sister, and Wife
Now, we don’t call each other,
Knowing only silence will answer.

We spent hours,
Days, even weeks
Preparing it.
The highlight of
Our little war.

You’ll never truly
Understand
The amount of effort
Everyone put into
That night.

You knew it was coming.
You had to know,
How could you not?
Everyone whispering
Behind your back

Finally,
Halloween came,
The decided date.
You still had no clue
What was going to happen.

You should have seen me,
Standing in line at Aldi’s
Dressed as a purple fairy,
Holding thirty-two rolls
Of shrink wrap.

After my eight hour shift,
The real fun began.
Three of us,
Dressed as fairies,
Running around your truck.

Sadly,
You didn’t see it.
Security intervened.
Which is probably a good thing,
I didn’t want to see
How you would top that.

It wasn’t until I grew up that we became friends,
After I’d completed my share of moving,
Tried my share of illegal substances,
Loved my share of people.
We became friends out of convenience,
I was old enough to be in a bar,
But not old enough to drink.

So, every night I had off work,
We’d all go out.
You, me, Dad, and Beaker -
Your only friend it seemed.
You all would knock the drinks back,
While I laughed and watched,
Waiting to load three drunken men into my Chevy

On my twenty-first birthday,
We became best friends,
One friendship left over
From my ill-fated attempt at love
With your best friend, Beaker.
The night was long, the drinks were short.
I drunkenly kicked your ass in guitar hero.

Now, we go out every week,
You, Me, and Beaker.
We drink and we dance.
Beaker and I still make out.
Your friends at the bar look at me with interest.
The bartender looks at me with a smile,
“Don’t worry, it’s not a girl,
Jay’s just her brother!”

(This was going to be an ode at first, but I can’t wrap my head around meter enough)