When he laid there, dead, there

was so much we knew,

and,

there

was so much more we

 

Would

Have

Been.

 

There

 

were twenty years.

 

And these years,

were the best and worst of

​

countless shades of Green and Black.

And, when teenage laughs, obscene and intact,

gave ruthless way to a hospital fact,

I knew no smiles are ever real, and lack

​

all truth, and fire, that souls authentic

know like the cold, stale patients’ rooms,

where the lies, outside, freeze in septic

horrible stenches, yet this is the truth.

 

Everything else you’ve heard and loved,

and every little wretched jump for joy,

and every rotten festive alcove

where fools all cheer and continue their ploy

 

is false and never makes some room

for somber facts like a frozen Friend,

as coma shocks threw him soon,

and stabbed his youth,

and killed mine too.

 

I spoke to him between those

cold four walls

and they pressed, and pressed,

and crushed my head,

but nowhere else I

preferred to call

my home and life,

than a house of the Dead.

 

Many there are,

these terrible moments,

when the life of

cards flips and slaps

your face so hard

that brows now foment

such furrows that

dig where eyebrows

lack

 

any such cheer

or comfort at all

since daily life is

only levels of hell,

and bad enough

is that alone, as tall,

as a Colossus of pain that

a Friend’s loss sells

 

to lives so foolish

as to exist at all,

and wills so brutish

as to show and tell

what petty

performance we all call

this dagger of life

that waking compels.

 

Waking!

 

Isn’t that something?

 

That whatever the sweet such

sleeping pill

is biology’s gift, and

a sad man’s thrill

forcibly shocks

awake in fills

of the Adversity Cup

that brims until

 

years with a Friend

in nostalgia’s kiss

spill and protect

that grass as warm

as that we kicked

in martial bliss

when a black belt’s

pursuit, we’d never miss.

 

But, so it is,

and it does little good

to perseverate long

and, endless, brood

 

Life, as it is,

never guides us

by whatever we like,

or gravitate to

 

and horrible always

my heart so writhes:

that red house of pain

that all my life

stung and stung

though not like now

that without our laughs

makes blood into

 

Stones.

 

Blessed, my Friend,

were all those years, and

never shall I

forget my tears,

 

but I will live

on, and dedicate Strength

to honor thy

Life,

 

And smash

our fears.

 

_________________

 

R.V. Smith: “My Friend”, 01-24-26

 

© 2026 by Ryan Vincent Smith