Breakdown of the soul

Life is a dance.
It is the end of year school prom.
It is the first waltz at a wedding reception.
It is the first tenatative steps of a hopeful ourtship.
Footballers dance past defenders.
Tennis players dance across courts.
Daredevils dance between life and death.
Everyone dances. Everyone has a partner.
But it seems that I am dancing along

The friendship we had
started out great.
Don't they always?
The talks.
The kindness.
The love.
There is a wonderous elegance afoot
when the heart makes its choice.
When mind and soul are in rare collusion.
Harmony. Compromise
was always easy to reach.
Forgiveness was always
there to be found.
Happiness was but
a phone call away.
What else could it have been,
other than pure joy?
Other than love?

They rarely, if ever,
end that way.
I have never been fortuntate.
I can never seem to keep friends.
They fade away.
They disappear.
As you are.
Loneliness.
Anger.
Bitterness.
A slow, mad descent into hate.
Obstacles appear where
there once open fields.
Unlocked doors
are sealed shut.
Intimacy gives way to distance.
Aloofness.
Arrogance.

A stubborn, mind-numbing refusal
to be open minded.
To admit... to being wrong.

How could we have survived?
How could we have stayed friends
when we were both participants,
in what was pulling us apart?
Happy times grew few and far between.
The arguments were getting frequent.
Nasty. Heart-breaking.
More and more,
tears were my bedfellows,
sadness my only companion
as I navigated sleepless nights
and lightless days.

I know now now, as I
should have known then,
that it should have stopped.
It should have ended.
But I soldiered on,
enamoured in my belief in love,
strengthened by my faith in humanity.
Yet it all came to nought.
The pure disdain
that became a greeting
wounded my soul deeper
than any mere physical harm.
The contempt for emotion
tore me into pieces.

What more could be done?
I finally let go,
worser for the wear,
Scarred. Forever marked.
An emotional burden I shall carry
for as long as I am unable to deal with it.

Memories are bittersweet.
The sorrowful eloqunce of their subtlety
would be lost on closed hearts
and hardened souls.
It is hard to live like this.
Each day is a struggle,
the vagaries of life presenting
alternating degrees of insurmountability.
When will it all end?
When will the simple pleasure
of enjoying the sun's rays
and the shine of the moon,
become more than excercises
in conquering the demons of the past?
Demons, that threaten to haunt my future?

Life is a dance.
And it seems without you my friend
I have forgotten the steps.