sitting alone on the roof of my car in the middle of nowhere

watching as the world ends around me

it wasn’t the brimstone and fires of mythos

no unshackled tentacle faced creature crawled from the abyss

the skies were clear with no ever growing meteor streaking down

turns out the end of the world was just a simple tuesday

an arbitrary day for armageddon

no pageantry

no spectacle

the dead did not rise with insatiable hunger and feast upon the screaming masses

no tremors as the ground split and demons poured forth to slaughter and kill

it just happened

one minute it was business as usual

then it was not

i did not see a mushroom cloud stain the sky blood red as it smothered the atmosphere and the invisible tendrils of radiation washed over all

then with no whimper or bang

it ended

it was the ringing of the phone

two simple words

“he’s gone”

and like that the stars ceased to sparkle one by one in the velvety black sky

the sounds of life just stopped

the earth ceased spinning

and the lack of centrifugal force sent everything I had ever known spiralling out into the aether

as the vacuum of space seized me

blood boiling as my skin froze

and as i floated above all

i realized it wasn’t the entire world that had ended at that moment

just mine

another friend gone with no fond farewell

no bon voyage

just a needle hanging from his arm

and a look of serenity on his ashen face

as i was pulled back from my weightless orbit

burning to a cinder as the free fall from five miles up

i wondered if anyone would make a wish on my falling star before i too vanished from being

a pinch of space dust like freshly fallen snow settling on the lives of friends and family

chewed up swallowed in the cogs of the machine

chained to addictions he could never hope to tame

the last tether frayed until there was nothing keeping me here

would i see him again

my corpse blossom brother

the empty vessel where once love and friendship had bloomed

now unrestrained by the need that consumed him

free as he hadn’t been for a decade plus

i’ll miss the you no one had seen since you added you to addiction

can i forgive you

i don’t know

i don’t

but i loved you like a brother

a step brother because you were twelve of them short of whole

because you stepped on everyone to get a fix

because your final fix was to step away