Death of a Friendship

I heard around - that I’m no longer welcome at your hearth. Old friend, is it true? Did life already move on for you? I heard around, you’re quite the favorite of the crowd. But there’s one room where your parade is never allowed. The daisies I weaved into your hair, remain where I kept them - dried and crumbling. I left them there when our laughs ran true and I’m sure there’s some meaning; to your blithe goodbyes and shifting eyes. I will break a corner of my trust and seal these cracks with it. Dorian, you are the star of this city. Your laugh rings freely and your words are so lively. I am but a stranger - our friends now just yours, and mine, the rats scurrying about. So in the alleyways where your servants lay waste of whatever remains, after your nightly parties and parlays - I hear whispers about the room they’ve never been in. And what riches lay within. They clamber to break in, they ruminate its contents. I am old but I remember. Your poisons are shelved like procured jewels, and the walls are decked with portraits in varying stages of decay. Friends and family, just a merry room full of memories - is it not, Dorian? I now sit in the dark side-alley, half tempted to scream and wreak havoc upon your lovely company. Half tempted to open the door, take this weight with me and set myself free, float in the air and look up at the moon and say, "Hey, you're just like me - waning and floating in mid air all lonely" But I'm not lonely, I have this thing I seem to carry with me lately, to everywhere I go and I know it will pull me down - the weight that you left with me. A friendship meant for life, but so sad it died so young, what happens to the weddings I'll never attend and the conversations in the dead of the night that will never happen? And there you are with your new piercings and new friends, new boyfriends and indifference. And there she is, my old friend, hair curled just like her mouth, naturally bitter without any heat. Unhappy with one thing or another, just how I remember. Tell me Dorian, does her other face scowl too? Dorian, did you ever find out why lately, the walls seem so bare? Right in the corner, next to the window - right next to the portraits of your best friends, one slot remains hollow. Dorian, I’ve been meaning to ask you, why do you never call me? Where is that painting you made of me? Dorian… are you afraid of me? Dorian, for all your charm and beauty, your painting is a withering monstrosity. Don’t you worry, it is safe with me. Dorian, I saw you slipping poison for months into its mouth. I saw you apologize till your tongue and get on, shook your legs free as it begged, and crawled to you for life. You locked the door and led me away from it, laughing merrily as we sipped on wine and traded sleep for a hearty conversation. The liquor clouded everything but my alarm at what my eyes had seen. Dorian, I’ve seen who you truly are. Dorian, if you just wanted it dead, Why didn't you have the spine to kill it? Instead, you let it fester, sickening green from your poison, it screamed for mercy and I gave it with a shot of a bullet or two. And now I'm in hiding for the murder you plotted, I'm the one with blood on my hands while you hold your masquerade balls in your shiny new life as if you don't live in one every day. Dorian, your painting isn't framed. Your strokes were cruel, and the art - the corpse of our friendship. And now I'm dragging it with me wherever I go. Dorian, you're a prodigy, I wonder how many of your works exist. Will I meet another with a corpse around their neck just like the one you gave me? How many murderers of mercy have you made of your company?