The
Best Friend I Ever Had
By
Hector Vance
The best friend I ever had was the most
intrusive, insulting person I ever met.
The best friend
I ever had, had words like snakes- ten foot long boa constrictors that viciously
wrapped themselves in and around their victim’s rib-cage, crushing the bones and
leaving a crumpled mess of a man, sobbing and heaving in as much decent air as
he could take.
The best friend
I ever had, had a temper like you've never seen. He could break me down with
his hate, spittle spewing from his mouth like the unorthodox screech of
bloodthirsty hounds at first sight of the weak calf in a heard of four-hundred.
The best friend
I ever had could play with my emotions like children’s active, little hands
grabbling through mounds of sand; each finger like a hook, uprooting my
insecurities, one grain at a time and ripping each one from the other. Moods
like Anxiety. Embarrassment. Self-loathing.
The best friend
I ever had hated the world, hated me, and, undoubtedly, he hated god.
I despised the best friend I ever
had…
For
lots of the time.
He was a
fifteen year old insomniac, with a love for life and an attitude that shined
like the sun. He had friends like most people had insecurities and he surrounded
himself with good people as actively as others built the walls.
He was kind of
a snob
But I loved him anyway…
For
lots of the time.
Through
elementary, I was always alone- I was lost amongst thick jungle of creative
thoughts, of soldiers, and characters and poetry. Trees protruded through the
ground, growing tall and fast- me helplessly getting caught in them as I sauntered.
Always sauntered.
I never rushed to
escape, never rushed to get back to the other children, because I was fine. I
was fine getting tangled in my dreams, being swallowed up by great lakes of
contempt, Introverted, love for myself.
I think I was
so intertwined into the trees and the vines and the jungle as a whole that I forgot
to peer just a little farther than edge of my woodland, simply to see that most
people didn’t like forests.
The best friend I ever had loved them, though.
He was terrible and brutal to me, but he loved the jungle just as much as
I did.
The best friend
I ever had was the only person in the ENTIRE world who could criticize me, who
could belittle me; and even though his words were the harshest, most
destructive, most vile profanities; that ripped into me, shredding me into a
billion pieces, and strewing me across the pavement, at least he understood me.
The
best friend I ever had, had words like snakes, but they weren’t lies spawned
from the selfish greed of a man simply trying to prove a point
The
best friend I ever had, had a temper like bloodthirsty mutts, but in time he
would forgive what others considered unpardonable. He would tell me, “Humans
make mistakes. We’ll try again next time.”
The
best friend I ever had would play with my emotions, but who else’s were they to
play with, when they were a complex equation, completely unsolvable by every
mathematician, by every psychologist, by every man who had ever taken claim
over the title doctor on the whole planet.
The best friend
I ever had, knew sometimes the answer couldn’t come from the outside when both
the equation and the storm were on the inside.
You ask me to
be lyrical, I’ll do it.
You ask me to
be original I’ll do it.
You ask me to
throw my work amidst a sea of poets, done.
You ask me to follow the prompt, eh.
You
ask me to find my Paris, I’ll do it.
You ask me to hand
out my work among hundreds of critics, I’ll do it.
You ask me to introduce myself
… done.
Introducing the best friend I've ever had.
