I was in a gig, I saw her back, she was sitting on the floor. It was the end of the night. People were chatting.
I knew she was there before I saw her. The room was dimly lit. The crowd, arty. Mutual friends flitted between me and her. A human umbilical cord between us.
Noting said -her silence shouting at me. It said - keep away from me. It said - you're nothing to me.
You don't exist.
I've died from your life, by my own choice. I don't miss you. I don't need you. I never really did.
The bitter-sweetness of seeing her again, after so long but of her not wanting to greet me. The sour taste of disdain.
Murmurings surrounded me, friends joking, catching up. It felt like a chasm of sound surrounding the void between me and her.
The loss, the hiraeth pressing hard against me from all directions. My friend who I was still grieving for, a meter away from me.
I never had a chance to say goodbye. I was exiled from her life over a course of a few minutes. A heated exchange over voice notes. But maybe for her our connection had been waning for much longer.
The hotness of the conflict in my body, and the heaviness of the loss.
***
I would like to curate a bath for her, like she once did for me, and read them poetry from behind the shower curtain, like she had once done for me.
Maybe it was this capacity for care that made the end of our friendship so unexpected… so horrifying.
I would meld our minds together, her perspective flowing freely into mine, mine to hers. Perfect mutual understanding would expand both our minds like a limitless mandala. A circular maize spanning the bright colours of forgiveness and love.
***
The fantasy ends there. We will now be to each other the estranged family that was the kindling to our connection.