You visited my sleep
Again last night
An after-image of our
Decayed friendship
You were a giant
Huge hands and feet
And you hid
In the back bathroom
Of my childhood home
The one with the yellow handles
And towel racks
That aren’t there anymore
And the real human skeleton
In the hay coloured wooden box
That’s long forgotten but still there
You weren’t seen in the dream
But I knew you were there
A bit like
In my waking life
Where
Not even the bones
Of our friendship
Survived

(Because unlike my parents
I keep no skeletons)

The flesh of our bond
Wounded too deeply
When you tried to pretend
I wasn’t there
Because it was convenient
Because you wanted what I had
And you were too cowardly
To seek it out with integrity
And honesty
Two qualities I thought
You really did have

Sometimes
I have
An imagined conversation
With you
I say all the things
I can’t say to you
I point out the moments
You’ve pushed out of your mind
The laugher
The thousands of texts
The ciders I bought you
Because you were poor
Running in the rain after work
Comforting you on Elizabeth street
When you said you’d never meet
Anyone, ever
And I remind you again
What I said on that walk

You will. You may even know him already.

I give you a look
In the scene, in my mind
And you
You can’t hold my gaze
Because you understand the irony
You know
That my loss
Was your gain
Then I say, what I want to
But what I can’t say to you

*You may have the trophy
But you didn’t really win
No matter how much you
Polish your prize
Your guilty face will
Always be reflected back at you
A gilded distortion
An ugly elongated shadow
Of your form
The same reflection
You’ll see in the sheen
Of your ring
But do you know what, Sophie?
I don’t need a surface to
Reflect anything back to me
Because old friend
I am free