Fizzled Sparks

There were once sincere words and shared feelings between us, though it seems impossible to remember now. What once could have been is now out of the question. We can try to place the blame, looking over it all with a fine tooth comb in some twisted hope to figure out who did what and how we should feel. Though it seems futile when we both have long ago lost any possible seeds of friendship that could have grown. We are left with a field of weeds and dried up soil that could never be mended. A crop of dust and dead plants is all that remains.

We put on our nice faces when we find ourselves in the same place. The smile never quite reaches our eyes. Awkwardly avoiding eye contact until one of us has an excuse to move to a different conversation with someone we dislike a little less. Escaping seems easier than being sincere. The words we say to each other are fumbled and half assed, though your thoughts are complex and dripping with same judgement. Do you feel like the choices you've made are paying off? Words spoken in bitterness have a way of tainting the person who uttered them. You put up a facade of a happy life but it is hard to ignore that you're always alone.

You try to insert yourself into situations and events to avoid feeling left out. Playing nice just long enough to invoke some guilt. Immediately resuming your judgmental silence as soon as you get what you were after. Were you always like this? Did I do something to make you act this way? It stands to remain a mystery with no attempt to solve it. Why bother expending energy when it would simply detract from the life I've had to build to avoid you? I should be clear that I never thought you were a bad person, rather just a bad friend. A person who is so afraid of being hurt that you live a lonely life and would rather harm others to stay safe. You are the master of faking nice when you're looking someone in the face just to immediately mock them behind their back.

It seems like a waste to spend any time on one another when we both dropped the rope long ago. Drastically different lives with no space for each other keep us from really spending any time on fixing things and forces us to just move on or slowly drown in anger. There are so many questions that remain unanswered. So many things that will likely remain unsaid for the rest of our lives. Although by this point, I can't say that any answer you could possibly provide would have any meaning to me. The decisions you made are yours alone and though I have tried to look at it from every possible angle, I know I will never understand your choices. Things that were once of importance are no longer thought of as time has gone on. Where there was once anger, there is only indifference. Where there was sympathy, there is only pity. It isn't like we could have moved forward together even if we had tried. Some things are meant to be final.

Maybe there isn't a clear villain in the end. We are both just human, after all. Faking smiles and polite conversation isn't the worst fate. At the end of the day, friends was a label we never quite found a way to make work for us. Enemies was never worth the time we wasted. Perhaps we were just two acquaintances who had a spark that fizzled out and left us both with minor burns.