You’ve been speaking to me
like someone keeping a door cracked open
just enough for me to stand in the cold
and still believe I’m welcome.
Lately your words feel shorter,
your silence louder.
Like being your friend
became something heavy
the moment I started acting like one back.
And maybe I understand it.
I’m the bad part of your story,
the friend that existed
in the space between breakups,
the person who helped hold your heart together
just long enough
for you to hand it back to him.
But if that’s true,
why keep calling my name?
Why tell me things
in that voice you know I’ll answer softly to?
You know how I love people.
So why does it suddenly feel
like I’m being punished
for caring exactly the way you know me to?
I can handle distance.
I can handle space.
But being made to feel like a burden
for simply trying to be your friend
is the part that breaks me quietly.