Empty bottles, broken glasses,
Things we used and need no more.
They can be left behind.
Shed blood, shed sweat, shed tears,
Bear no more meaning,
And can be left behind.

But more than glances passed glasses.
More than words went here.
Where do we draw the line,
And where can it be blurred,
Of what can be left behind?

For did we not enjoy
Shed moments of our lives together,
And didn't mourn but loved them gone,
Not losses, but graceful aging?

Did you not love the conversation,
The tall tales, old wives' tales,
Terrors and dreams shared,
And all the tear-stained embraces
That they entailed?

Can you not remember celebrations,
Jubilations, playing make-believe
Where you have your heroes
And I have mine, and side-by-side
They fought back crime and sometimes
Like us they shed light and lit nights
And ended the day with the title of knight?

But somehow along the way of playing games,
Real life monsters began to shape the way we played,
And anger from unknown places
Began to taint the days that then were numbered.

I wish so deeply sometimes that I could unsay them.
Maybe then I would not be left behind.
But moreso, even deeper, do I wish that this
Friendship itself hadn't suffered under petty words
And arguments that by now have points I've long forgotten.
There it ended without means,
From meanness without ends.
In one day died half a decade.

I want to say to you,
"Can we not go back to how it was,
To when we laughed, when we loved,
When nothing stood between us?"
But then I bitterly remember,
"Ah yes, that's right, I tried."
I want to hear you say to me,
"This bond has not diminished,
This friendship isn't finished,
It cannot be left behind."