the times are engraved in you.
eleven. four. eight.
then eleven. eight.
then sometimes eight.
then rarely.
next never.

he'll seem jovial, close enough to his old self, but you know there's a wall now. a wall even a close friendship can't break through, climb over. all you've ever wanted was to be close to him. even now. just 10 minutes a day of laughing or sarcasm would fill the void he left behind. but maybe now he feels some moral obligation to cut you out, to leave you with less than even a friendship. his voice still makes you calm, centered, but he's taken even that away.

so you take the pills they tell you to take, and you wait for his memory to fade. wait for the pills to wipe your slate clean, wait for them to make you calm instead.

eight in the morning.
two in the afternoon.
four in the evening.
ten at night.

24 multi-colored capsules and tablets, designed to fix your broken brain. but they can't fix some things, they can't fix a gaping wound where a friend ought to reside.

so what do you turn to? calories? numbers? miles run? they can all be neatly sorted out, like time or pills. the impossible becomes possible, until you're running on empty. running from the truth to create your own. to recreate yourself.

you despise the person you were with him. the person who pushed him away somehow. made him shelter himself against you.

and the person you are now is steadily shrinking. taking away the bad parts and replacing them with emptiness for someone else to fill up. that's what you do, you consume and consume enough of a person until there's nothing left to do but walk away.

(you dont feel anything if you drink enough.)