You don't stop loving someone,
Not usually.
Usually you just forget to.
They fall out of your life
and you go weeks
without a thought of them.

Then a memory roars back
and you feel that pang
That says, "you're not quite done."

But they left you.
Without a proper goodbye.
So you sent them one,
and it felt like
setting that friendship on fire
while shoving it off in boat
to be immolated
while it sails across a sea you'll never cross,
and standing at the shore staring unfeeling
at the fading light the dying ship gives off.

(the goodbye also felt like
a whisper,
drawing the curtains closed on an empty house,
or pulling the shroud over unseeing eyes
after the last breath
sighed
out of this sad remnant of camaraderie
without anyone noticing.)

I do not burn things.
I am not a phoenix,
and neither were we.
I am a snake;
I shed my skin when I grow to big to be contained,
Leaving it behind to show where I once was.

Scattered along the path of my past
are mementos too small to contain me.

I will not forget the lessons I learned.
There are no bleeding wounds to forgive,
Only a ghost that grows weaker each time I forget the teacher.