You use my greatest fears
as slings, rocks and arrows
meant to draw not blood, but tears
hitting the earth like meteors.
You bend and twist my limbs
in a figurative way.
You train my hopes like a dog,
telling them to stay
and you never come back for them.
You stockpile sharpened words
and hails of insults.

You used to be what I called friend,
but I was always aware of your simplicity.
Perhaps it was how explicitly
you framed desire and hatred
in the same portrait.
You made sub-cultures fit into your own identity
and always found a way
to make me feel unwanted.

You were a ****** friend,
but the way you brought about the end
like a hammer crushing the skull
of the decades I have left to live,
THAT,
I'm not sure I can forgive.
But when I wake up tomorrow,
and I look into the mirror,
I will not see your face staring back
but you always will.

And for this reason I still find it in myself
to feel pity for you.
The same pity I feel
for those short of food and clean water
because for every time
you put my dreams to the slaughter
you put another notch in your belt.
The same one that keeps you fastened to your hate.
You'll be padlocked there until you find the key,
hidden in your own humanity.
To win against hate,
you have to not want to participate in it.
When it comes to mine,
it's still there,
but everyday it grows dimmer.
Not dim as in, you,
but less strong.

So this is our swan song.
You asked me to write you a poem
and after today,
I just couldn't say no.