The 3 a.m Friend

Lost amidst the chaos || Tell me anything and I'll do justice to my username💫 ||

[the3amfriend]

"Does knowing me more lead to loving me less?" a question I've always asked myself after every person in my life, both romantic and platonic left after I felt the inevitable shift.

I quit letting people know me.

[the3amfriend]

you once asked me,

"what's the difference between can't and won't?"

"i don't know," i laughed.

"what? you're the writer here, explain it to me."

"well, let's say those two words just differ in choices." i sighed. "for example, if i told you i couldn't love you, it means i lack the capability to do it-it simply means i just can't." you were staring at me. "but if i told you i wouldn't love you, that means i have the choice to love you, but for a million reasons the universe has kept unknown, i choose not to."

you were quiet for a second, and it was as if forever has passed, but i still remember how your voice sounded when you asked,

"you know my reasons, right?"

[the3amfriend]

unfortunately I will never be mad at you. Instead I will analyze your life and childhood and feel sorry for you!!

[the3amfriend]

And every once in a while, you find yourself wandering back to the places where you left pieces of yourself, wondering how those people are holding up, living lives that no longer have room for you. You wonder if they ever think of you the way you think of them—if your name ever crosses their mind like a forgotten song, a familiar melody that fades but never quite disappears.

It’s strange, knowing that some connections are meant to be fleeting, that some goodbyes are permanent. Yet, the heart still carries the weight of all those unfinished conversations, the what-ifs and the might-have-beens. You’ll never speak to them again, but sometimes, you’ll catch yourself smiling at the thought of them, hoping they’re happy, even if you're no longer part of their story.

[the3amfriend]

Just yesterday, we were waiting for our parents to return from the market with snacks, and today, we are 20-somethings, living in a small flat somewhere in a big city, leaving behind our homes in small towns, hoping to build a life that can accommodate everyone - parents, friends, and us.

But it's so difficult - we are always out of groceries, and the milk in the fridge has gone stale now that you actually need it. The ever-going construction is a part of your soul, and somewhere in that small town, your parents are lonely too. But nobody says it out loud because accepting loneliness is like accepting that you're sick. And nobody has time for that now, do they!! We don't have time to feel anything!!

[the3amfriend]

On Sunday, she asks about the therapy. What did you go for? She asks kindly. She doesn't mean to pry. Her question comes from a place of care.

I know this but I do not know what to tell her.

A lot of things, I say honestly. I wasn't happy . That summarises the situation very vaguely but I know it does not explain anything.

She is careful not to look at me too intently.

I did not like myself very much. I try. It is difficult to show someone you love the violence. The versions of yourself you tried to bury.

You know parts of what they'll say. You did that? You thought that? How could you?

But I did. And I could. And the truth is, there are moments where I have to try very hard not to again.

[the3amfriend]

you said,

tell me where you've been, love

and i thought of all the lost roads,

and dark corners,

and heavy work, and heartbreak,

and of all the healing

and I just said......

on my way here.

[the3amfriend]

One day,

I will stop feeling it all.

All of a sudden,

In a blink.

And I will be capable

Of telling a tale about

How some people

Posses a magic to turn

Hearts into stones.

[the3amfriend]

I used to think communication was the key until I realised, comprehension is. You can communicate all you want with someone but if they don't understand you, it's silent chaos.

[the3amfriend]

I know we're both just messing around pretending to be whole but look at me. if the train was coming would you move?. if the ground was falling from under your feet would you notice or would it just be another Tuesday for you. if somebody stabbed you could it hurt worse than you already do. what I'm saying is that I love you but I think we both drive over the speed limit when it's raining. what I'm saying is that I want to hold your hand and I understand about how you sometimes have to sit down in the shower. what I'm saying is that I am here for you and if the train comes please move.

[the3amfriend]

"you're a mess of good intentions gone wrong. You strike a match on yourself to keep others warm, and now the whole goddamn world is on fire.

You try to put it out, and you try so hard. the dam breaks, and the waters of your sorrow pour free. You are sorry; so very, very sorry-and you will drown everyone to prove it."

[the3amfriend]

I have no clue how to address you now, so thought to stick to this. It's 2:30 am and I'm trying to scribble the parts that were left to brief. Parts of me that were left and are still stuck that you wouldn't remember but I do. I am trying to keep it all together, I go to college, I listen to all the great songs, new and old, I shop so much with friends or new people whom I call friends to feel alright. I always end up buying those baggy shit t-shirts again, just like old times huh? I walk and laugh a lot.

Got only cereals and milk for the day that I don't feel like eating in this bizarre unused kitchen. The toasts echo the crunch of your mouth though.

I don't travel much like I used to. The college people look eerie and detentions appear cosy. There's crowd, a lot of it but crowds look too silent now like they have been mute ever since. But, the music, the old songs and the new, they help me to escape this silence. The kinda silence you feel in a bustling market, in a pub, in the evening, in the alleys, the kinda silence that only exists to me. But, the t-shirts, they don't fit in like yours could. They are new tatters you see here and there and I am so misfit. But, the walks are just to make me a bit less lumpy than the sittings and the laughs are just to prevent the nausea of missing you all the time and not letting anyone know.

If I don't laugh, I'll vomit the lumps I carry and I hate to vomit, you know. It chokes and smells super bad.

Other than that, 'm cool.

It's been eight long months, since I am a stranger to myself. It's really fun you know, not knowing who you are and why you are, because you took the known with you. And all I am left with, are parts. The bits of me I collect everyday and smile.

This is all so real to be fake, fake enough to fake the happiness everyday.

I hope you are good and that the weather is better. And If winter bites hard there, I still have a part of you, I always keep warm.

Now ignore this brief crap of mine. I am sleepy and I am lying that I am sleepy. Just want the night to pass. I didn't want to cry. I tried, to not cry.

Yours, R

[the3amfriend]

How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?

[the3amfriend]

gosh does anyone else have a weird little graveyard in their head for friendships of the past??

and every once in a while you just visit it and think about how those people are getting on, knowing you will never see or speak to them again?

current mood.

[the3amfriend]

I won't call you. I won't send you Christmas cards. I won't look you up on the internet or write to ask you how you are.

and we won't catch up like old friends. I won't be invited to your sister's wedding. You won't be a place I can stay in the city or an I.C.E. contact or a character reference,

but in my mind for a split second you will still drive every little black car I see. and when that song comes on the radio there'll be a ghost in my passenger seat. you'll stay smiling in the pictures that I print out just to hide, and I'll make up stories to write my poems

but slip you there in the spaces between the lines.

[the3amfriend]

“Ultimately, we will lose each other to something. I would hope for grand circumstance—death or disaster. But it might not be that way at all. It might be that you walk out one morning after making love to buy cigarettes, and never return, or I fall in love with another … It might be a slow drift into indifference. Either way, we’ll have to learn to bear the weight of the eventuality that we will lose each other to something. So why not begin now, while your head rests like a perfect moon in my lap …? Why not reach for the seam in this … night and tear it, just a little, so the falling can begin? Because later, when we cross each other on the streets, and are forced to look away, when we’ve thrown the disregarded pieces of our togetherness into bedroom drawers and the smell of our bodies is disappearing like the sweet decay of lilies—what will we call it, when it’s no longer love?”

[the3amfriend]

Andrew Garfield saying ,"I hope this grief stays with me because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her" about his mother passing is so gut wrenchingly beautiful because we rarely talk about the love we want to express but can't, not because you are not brave enough to say it out loud but because they are not here to listen to it anymore. Calling grief the love you never had the chance to share makes it less of a burden and more of something you want to keep and not something terrible you want to move on from or to give it to someone. I love how everything about grief comes down to "what is grief if not love persevering?"