Complicit

She says she doesn't want to take sides.

As if there are two sides
to a bruise
and it's all
a matter of perspective.

She heard her friend
raise her voice,
heard him
speak in shadows.

She knows
an apology never came.
Saw the tears
that were wiped away
before anyone else arrived.

She says she doesn’t want to take sides.

So she doesn't ask
why her friend stopped laughing.
Doesn't ask
why invitations
began going unanswered.
Why her friend stopped looking ahead,
stopped imagining
there could be anything
worth trying for.

She calls it staying neutral.

But neutrality
is choosing to gift
the harmer
the comfort of silence,
the luxury of being
unaccountable.

Her friend
learns a lesson
in how loneliness works:

a room
full of people
who saw her break
deciding
it’s not their place
to name who broke her.

One day,
she asks her friend
if she might be interested
in meeting someone new.

She knows a man.

Her friend hasn't even answered
when she asks:

You're not going to
go crazy on him,
are you?

She saw the damage,
knows why her friend
is angry
and somehow,
her friend
is the one
who will come with
a warning label.

Not the man
who caused the wound.

Her.

Because her anger
has a voice.

And silence
gets mistaken for innocence.

Her friend
starts wondering
if maybe she should
make herself smaller.

Speak softer.

Tell less.

Stop saying
what happened.

Her friend has gone on dates
that went nowhere.
One man
turned out to be married.

Her friend walked away—
survived another disappointment
without going crazy.

But somehow,
the woman who says
he did this
is the one
people watch.

The one they worry about.

The one they warn others about.

And her friend begins
to understand
how alone she really is
when the person beside you
gives him the benefit of the doubt,
canceling your benefit of belief. 

She thinks
standing in the middle
can't hurt anyone.

Her friend
is learning
there’s no middle,

learning that the person who says

I don't take sides

has chosen
the side
that makes them

complicit.