I wish you had been eaten by a shark. I wish you had swum out to a vast space in that fickle bluish green water of the ocean and watched the sun set. Its departure from the sky changing it from blue, to orange, to pinks, to brilliant purples, and then to black. I wish I was with you, floating on the water.

Friend, I have planned this in advance, because I know that when you pass it will be by your own will, and not by something as morbid as a shark pulling you under a current of water with me by your side. No, not this but by the sake of your own hand.

By your side, that’s where I have tried to be. I realize now that I have failed you. I am too late. You are gone and there is not a thing I am able to do about it. My friend, you were so dear to me. We laughed until our sides heated with agitation from our astounding amount of joy that we found in each other’s humor. I miss those laughs. I know they would have had to have faded away for you to leave me here alone, right? That’s exactly how I feel right now, alone. I never meant to make you feel so alone. I never meant to push you into a solitary corner to fend away your tears by yourself.

I wish you had exploded in a violent airplane crash. Maybe then you would see that the intense burning fire in you was real as your heat flew through pillowed clouds made of steam in the promise of hope on your way to God. Is there a God where you are? I wish I knew. I wish that you died in an airplane crash because he wouldn’t have to put so much effort into lifting you up into his home all the way from a so pitiful place known as Earth. Instead his energy could’ve been spent holding you, telling you everything was alright. I hope he’s there with you now, just like I should’ve been.

Friend, I should have called more. I should have told you that I loved you. Your brown eyes and hair that changed color with the moods you chose. You didn’t choose to be alone. I left you stranded with only memories of us to go back to. The reminiscent stories of our childhood washed away like the largest pebbles in the sand of a shore when you cut yourself for the first time. They were gone just like the hour long phone calls, or the promises to see each other soon. I didn’t see you soon. I can’t see you now. Your beautiful face is hidden by a casket’s wishes and I will never get to see you again until I stop at heaven’s gates and beg to see you before I am sent God knows where. I hope he gives me mercy and allows me to tell you I’m sorry.

I wish you died in a car collision of which I was the driver. I wish we had Jesse McCartney blaring through a trucks sound systems as we cruised along a smooth freeway. I wish we sang “Beautiful Soul” while looking out into a sea of lights resembling my new town seeping into our childhood home. I wish we laughed at our foolishness and I had just missed the exit turn. I wish I saw a trailer’s front lights before it was too late to turn.

Friend, is there a God? Does he have a beard as we predicted? Is he a child, so innocent and pure minded, only wanting to love us with his whole or is he an old gentlemen with hair that has greyed over his time of our great evolution? Does he hold you tightly enough? Is he everything that you had believed in? My faith was never as strong as yours. I know this because every time I mentioned him you say, “Atley, you don’t believe in God.” Yet I know that there is someone waiting there for you. I’m not sure who, but someone. They aren’t me though. They will never be me holding you like I should have before this happened. Is he real? Is God holding you tight enough to make everything, all the pain, go away?

I wish it didn’t have to end like this. I wish I still had you, most of all. I wish I still had the chance to hold your hand and explain to you how much you mean to me. You will never know. You will only know that the pain you put yourself through was your only relief. You will only know the hate of others, and your friend’s constant abandonment. My constant abandonment.
Friend, you are my savior. You are my consistent reminder that if she can do it, hell, I can too. You bring out the best and worst in me and I in you. I want you to know that I love you. I love you so much I hate it. I hate that you don’t trust me. I hate that I lost that trust. I hate that your legs are filled with scars, and your heart is filled with sawdust from all the mansions you were building in your mind to wander off into when I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to tell you that I hate you. I hate you because I don’t like trusting and loving someone with so much of my being that I would tell them:

I wish I was eaten by a shark with you.

I wish I exploded in that plane.

I wish, oh how much I wish, I crashed into that colossal of a trailer truck with you.


Friend, you are not just a friend. You are a part of my life that is not meant to only last me so long. You are the one I want to sing Jesse McCartney with at the worst of times, you are the one that I want to laugh will until I bend over in bittersweet pain, and most importantly you are the one I want to stay here with me. Stay here with me, ok? If the only thing we have to gain in staying here is each other, my goodness that is enough. It is plenty. It is more than I can bear.

Friend, as I am looking out over the highway’s edge, I think of you. I see the lights pool out into the city like stars in the sky and I wish on them, every last one. I sing a verse of our old favorite song, my eyes brimming with melancholy desire for everything to go back to what it once was. I wish that I had fought those tears off with you, maybe then you wouldn't have felt so alone.