He’s one of my favorite artists

But hearing his story is among the hardest

Maybe because it’s a story I’ve witnessed indirectly

But I never got closure

Can anyone ever

Divorce, I hear, is like a limb that’s been severed

My best friends went through it

It’s a word I don’t even like to say

It’s the theme of the album

Never stated explicitly

But the Despair, Denial, Bargaining, and long dark nights are how I felt on the periphery

It all came like a blow

Stuff under the water all that time and I didn’t know

She was suffering

Was it all because of him being mean

Could I have done anything?

Why’s it always come down to blaming?

X is a letter of the alphabet

Not a pseudonym

I hate in all this that I lost two friends

Worse: what about all that’s going on in them?

I hear it, feel it, in the words

Whatever happened, whatever came between, is a curse

Like a severed limb, it hurts

And I’m just the friend

Left in the wake

Relating to the music

A ligament somewhere in the break

And I’m just floating

Hoping things can go back

But I know it doesn’t work like that

At the beach I saw a half piece of a heart-shaped friendship necklace

Washed up on the shore

Its jagged edges were missing the other half

It was reckless, floating, wanting something more

The words of my favorite singer’s album buzzed in my head

My heart heavy

Because of a lifeless marriage, a friendship dead

Like a severed arm or leg

We weren’t meant to be alone

But without my friends, where do I go