Never have I ever

"Have you ever had a...", he asked in earnest. How to tell him? No, blessed friend; Pasolini is me. If ever you should start to doubt yourself, or think low of where your life is at, spend a moment thanking fate that you did not end up like this. A look of embarrassment crossed his face, as though he asked the question merely to confirm that, bad as things were, at least I had something to hold up as a badge of honour. No need to feel sorry for me!, I pre-empted. "But did you ever have the chance?", he asked. My rehearsed answer was all good to go -- Now that you mention it, do you remember that one summer when we were young... -- but at the moment it seemed like the most profoundly idiotic thing I could have uttered. Silence is the truest reply, I realised, all the while wondering if ever there was a more pathetic soul to have inhabited this planet.

Withered Hand

I'm sitting in silence, pretending to be in a state of utmost concentration as I slowly sip a glass of water. But I have to put on the act, because I need something to occupy my thoughts other than what it is I fear to say: these are the people I held on to for so long, through years that I lived for a week or two spent in warm embraces and fond reminisces. So how can we have nothing to say to each other? How I once wished that we could all be reunited, and that those happy times we spent in each other's company could live on. And then, all of a sudden, it became an actual possibility -- happy day! But as I near three years on from that landmark, I am coming to terms with the fact that, as ever, I'm in search of something that cannot be. It'd be unnecessarily callous to say that everyone has moved on; it's fairer, if less dramatic, to simply say that the context of those relationships has been disrupted, with the past serving as the only real tie of strength. That's not to say that the right conditions can't be nurtured; but nurtured by us, that's a different story. With a heavy heart, then, I must add to the list of all that is lost to me these dulled roots of a friendship, one that once was the entirety of my existence.