We disappeared into silence.

Unexplained, mutual avoidance,

on tiptoe past each other’s bedroom doors.

We lived in the same house

but managed to never be in the kitchen

at the same time for five months.

I memorised the song of the creaking

floor board from the bathroom to your bedroom,

until it became as familiar to me as your secrets

once were. Ear pressed to the wall,

my stomach empty and dishes piling up on my desk,

I waited for the last creak to fade,

determined to not have to face you.

The doors between us already locked;

our friendship already dried out and dead

like the leaves that once fell around us

from the yellowwood tree we spent afternoons

beneath, sharing bottles of wine

with a pack of cards, the best company,

aside from one another. We battled

it out for the glitter of the cheap plastic

crown we bought to coronate

Queen of the Cards. Both so competitive

that sometimes our friendship felt like a game.

I guess we both lost.

But how can I say I don’t miss you, don’t still mourn

the loss of us day drunk together

at a Gin Festival. Glasses of exotic

jewels in our fists, each another gleaming

mark that we were here, together.

I, who after working twelve hour shifts

for three weeks, spent my first day off

with you, tipsy, singing Grigio Girls in the car drive home.

I still don’t know how the silence crept in

to replace our song months later. Both of us so afraid

of the conflict, that it remained unbroken.

The loss of you cemented into my history

when you officially unfriended me,

without a single word passed between us.

I don’t know if you knew why.

I never did, but by then the space

that distanced us was insurmountable.