i see their pictures
the youth i remember
drained from the faces
i barely can recall
grown lined and round
happy creases in the
corners of sparkling eyes

a single snapshot
does not encapsulate
the bickering
screaming
each petty barb cast
this photo shows
two people that have
taken good and bad
and found a way to
make it through it all

i see their pictures
drowning in silence
the rinse and repeat of
my bipolarity the only
thing safe from me and
my iniquitous malaise
and brazenly aware
i am my own downfall

they are strangers now
a thousand miles away
the lives i was a part of
i watch now, apart from
we could pass one another
in an airport and never
exchange a passing glance
so far removed are we
from who we were then
they have become so much more
and i am significantly less

i miss them
lost in my stories
where only i
know which character
is based off of them
they have grown older
and i faded away

i saved his life once
a different life
than the one he lives
i ruined his life once
a life he was
trying to build
his life seems much better
without me around
and mine seems
mostly the same

the sadness in that
is also one of which
i am brazenly aware