I Still Think About You On Your Birthday

18 is a milestone I thought we'd share together, your birthday was always a few weeks before mine. Facebook posts detailing you journey from Westmere to graduation tinge the edges of my soul with pain, but I'm still not sure what warranted this. 

I was your friend when you had none, ushering you into a life of thrift shopping and My Chemical Romance while you taught me of kalimbas and blue tongued lizards and polaroid's all over your walls; documenting each and every outing you spent with friends. 

As time went on though, I was no longer an art piece to you. 

I remember your lime green car that looked like a nasty tree frog, and I remember making hot cocoa on cold nights, watching Paranormal activity. I remember you hugging me as I cried, depressed and sad over anything to do with myself, whether that be my sexuality, gender or even lifestyle. 

Years 9, 10 and 11 all revolved around you, my best friend seemingly forever as we planned matching tattoos in the back of Spanish, failing our exam because of our happiness and inattention. I wonder if you did get your restricted before me. 

I admit I'm not perfect, making the occasional joke at your expense, but shaming someone after they've made love with another for the first time is a really fucked up thing to do on your part. After all, you are still being friends with benefits with someone known for some less than savory behavior towards year 10s. 

Staying at your house was an escape for so long, crashing on the floor after walking up that goddamned hill as we laughed over nothing at all. Seeing you all flowy in pink at the ball was nice, you looked like a princess, but you also looked down upon me.

I still have those three photos we took together at the booth and I cannot grip to what has changed. 

We never were the same, but we both watched Jennifer's Body together in Geography and the irony hits like a truck. You've stabbed my heart without me even realizing, and you've left such a mark on me that I could not hope to heal, where you've moved past me and I'm nothing to you. Maybe my username has been a sad premonition on my part. 

Maybe you weren't worth the time, the money, the hours of my life spend trying to console you, or maybe you turned sour with jealousy as I moved towards a stable relationship as you harbored a resentment for my love, but those years and years I spent with you will be gazed upon fondly; but I don't know if I'll ever put your photos up in my dorm. I pray that someday you'll see what went wrong and discuss it with me, but until then, have an 18 birthday that makes me fade from your memory, it's really better off this way. 

If you don't think of me, then I wont think of you, because maybe then we can be at peace with what isn't on our minds. But even then, whenever I see someone that looks like you, you'll jolt through my mind; the sleepovers, the late night talks, the movies we couldn't finish because of the gore, Bo Burnham, the Hannibal jokes in English class and most of all the shifting from year 9 to year 13 of your personality, from nice to freezing. Someone must have removed the friendliness from your soul, which unfortunately was your demise. 

Have a nice life, and and birthday you'll never forget, but look at my empty seat at the table and sigh for what could have been. I could've been in your photos, sleeping over in the sunroom while the boys slept locked away in the living room. But no, you'll be spending it with two less people this year, and I can't tell you what to think of me, but I hope somehow that it isn't kind, because then and only then, I wouldn't have to bear the pain of knowing what you think of me. 

I was a being of Hell, put through it and smiling on the other side while you saw through my façade as something that deserved to be killed, slaughtered and badmouthed. I am a knife and you are the whetstone. I sharpen while you degrade pieces of me for what you believe to be your own. I'm not evil, but I thought you knew that. 

I guess not.