No Falling Out

Some things end without a sound.

Nobody is charged. Nobody is even suspected.

No last night, no final word —

just a slow reduction in the frequency of everything

until two people are strangers with a shared history,

which is the loneliest arrangement available.

No falling out. (no falling out)

Nothing happened. Nothing was said.

We just stopped happening.

So there's nothing to forgive

and nothing to go back and fix.

There should be a word for this and there isn't.

We have widowed, divorced, estranged —

none of them cover a man who is alive,

who would answer, who is fifteen minutes away,

and who I have not spoken to properly in four years

for no reason anybody could write down.

No falling out. (no falling out)

Just a slow leak over four years —

missed one thing, missed another, then the missing was the arrangement.

He sat with me the worst night of my life

and now I hear his news from other people.

And the mad part is he's alive.

He's fifteen minutes away in a car.

He'd answer the phone. He'd be pleased.

It's not that it's impossible, it's that it's awkward,

and awkward has beaten me for eleven years running,

which is a genuinely pathetic thing to admit out loud.

No falling out. (no falling out)

So there's nothing stopping this

but the size of the first message and how daft I'd feel writing it.

I'm going to look like an idiot.

I'd rather look daft than keep this.