10,000 days

Old friend, trying to hunt me down again
Old friend, this is your exit, you're no, no, no friend

Yes you are

I've written about you a few times in the past year. I thought I'd gotten everything out but I realize now I never will because none of my questions will ever be answered.

I don't know who would be typing this right now if we'd never met. You set so many things in motion and I'm sure you have no idea. I keep digging through all of the transcripts of our conversations I saved, but there is only one that I want to read, and it's lost in cyberspace forever. I wonder if you ever think about that night, if you ever think about me at all anymore. I'm not certain we would have become anything more than what we were, but I miss having you as my best friend. Sometimes.

You were the only person who actually understood me for a long, long time. The only person I opened up to about, well, everything. And you betrayed me, but not in the usual way, of course not- that was never your style. You always had to be different, even in your less-than-shining hours.

I know now that it was about you, never about me. You weren't trying to protect me from you- you were trying to protect yourself from your feelings for me. I won't pretend I've never wondered about how events would have unfolded if you would've just let them unfold...but I don't wonder anymore. It doesn't matter. This was only three years ago but it feels like two decades ago.

You feel so far away from me but sometimes I think I still remember what your voice sounds like. I remember one of the first times I heard it; I was at an amusement park and you called me and I stepped away from my friends to talk to you. 

And everything we felt for one another built and built and everything we wanted to say was left unsaid for almost a year. And then it all came spilling out, messily and unplanned, in one night. You couldn't handle it- in some ways I couldn't handle it either. You were adjusting to college. You were meeting other girls. And I had a boyfriend-- a boyfriend who was hundreds of miles away, but a boyfriend nonetheless.

I still have all of the books you sent me. For a while, I wanted to sell them and buy new copies- copies you hadn't paid for, copies that came from some large impersonal bookstore...not in a package with your return address on it. Then I decided to keep the copies you bought for me- it seems only appropriate. I would have never read those books if you hadn't given them to me.

I feel indebted to you in so many ways, and I wish I didn't. But mostly I just miss being able to talk to someone about all of the things we used to talk about without feeling judged. I watched a documentary about Ted Kaczynski the other day at the gym and all of those conversations we had- and well, in true "us" spirit I won't say much more on the Internet. I'm sure if you think long and hard enough, you'll remember.

That's just the problem- I can't stop remembering, sometimes. I wish I could because it would be easier but deep down I know I'll keep hanging onto the part of you that brought out the best in me, so long ago (but not really that long ago at all).

I would say I hope you're happy but that's not really it. I hope you haven't sacrificed your principles, your beliefs, yourself...for less than worthy causes. I'm somehow certain you have, though. Certain you've been sucked into the shiny, pretty world of academia. Certain that you're hiding between stacks of philosophy books and clever but vacuous conversations about nothing tangible. Certain you've divorced yourself from the world you once wanted to save.

That's what I can't forgive, old friend. I can forgive all of the things you said, what you did that night and never fully explained to me. I can forgive; I can forget. But I can't forgive your hypocrisy for some reason- mostly because it terrifies me. 

All the more reason why I have to remind myself every day I cannot turn my back on the truth, as hard as it is to open my eyes to such bright light over and over again when I wake up in the morning. I'm stronger than you are, and maybe- maybe we both know that. 

But enough about the collective Judas,
Who could deny you were the one who illuminated
Your little piece of the divine
This little light of mine
A gift you passed unto me
I'm gonna let it shine to guide you
Safely on your way
Your way home

And the last stanza of a poem I wrote you so long ago, that you will never read:

Goodbye, goodbye
But you're always here
You're only all I see
Barely it's true, but you exist
(Somewhere else)
This quiet evaporation is...complete
Love is all that remains
As the screen goes
Black