Myopia

Side by side we walked throughout the days of our youth,
Never a secret we kept, never a thought left unsaid.

You were my closest confidant, and I was yours.
Our souls were both fragmented, but together we were almost whole.

The age of adolescence ended and we went down separate paths,
I followed the hallowed halls of academia, but you were stuck in the past.

Perhaps I knew, deep inside,
That you could never leave the ground where your father died
But I had faith that you would make it out one day,
How was I to know beside him in the ground, you would also lay?

I knew your obstacles were plenty,
I knew your path was tough,
I just never knew that your will would not be strong enough
to outrun the demons your father's absence left behind.

Why couldn't I see?
Why were my eyes so blind?
How could I ignore the signs,
of a friend in pain -- a friend in the deep
of life's infinite afflictions.

You sought comfort in a bottle,
you found escape through a needle.
Now these vices no longer consume you, but their sting still lingers
in the missing part of my soul that you once occupied.

Maybe one day I will come to peace with your absence,
Maybe one day I will shed this cloak of shame.
But today -- today I just lay flowers on your early grave.