The color of crimson coated the garment you wore in the evening I saw you. False innocence was the scent of your perfume that night before it all fell apart. The aroma was sly, it passed by me swiftly, and I wondered if my senses had swindled me. Doubts swirled around my mind, I teetered on trusting you, but then I remembered that the game of playing the victim is a game where no one wins. I lost my respect for you and you lost your credibility. Everyone has flaws– some are out of our control, but some are made by choice. Your flaw? Lying.

Dishonesty is what I cannot accept and your constant lies tore me away from you. With each lie you spewed, the chances of us ever being friends again became slimmer. Now, the chance of us reuniting is thinner than a spider’s silk. With the web of lies you’ve spun, I found myself just hanging on a thread of hope that maybe you could change and we could salvage what is left of our friendship. But second chances are next to impossible to grasp, like a whisper in the wind dancing in the ever flowing air.

Perhaps you never listened or perhaps, it’s my own fault for never telling you how much I detest liars and I revere honesty above anything else. Am I to blame for assuming that you’d know that lying isn’t fair in any friendship? As the months passed and the seasons changed, I grew tired of being disappointed by your lies, like an autumn leaf loses its vibrancy and life as the cold and bitter winter strikes. You were just another friend who was not meant to be my friend. This cycle of losing friends has made me wonder, “Is it me?” The unpredictable occurrence of losing a friend is an art I’ll never comprehend.

Every human is a living piece of art and I had painted this picture of you with soft trusting colors of lighthearted pastels and rays of yellows and light blues, a budding friendship between us had been planted and I wanted us to bloom. But, I questioned if my vision was hazy and not fully the truth. When I took off my rose-tinted glasses, I saw the latent lies that had been hiding between the lines. You were a magician but the magic wore off and I no longer believed you. The tricks you had up your sleeve had no effect and the game of smoke and mirrors was a game you could no longer play.

And when there is smoke, there is fire. It may have been that I had mistaken your warmth for something gentle and comforting, but you were a coal that was going to burn me to the bone if I had not let you go. No amount of liquor would allow me to accept your lies back into my life. I burn bridges not for the destruction and dismay, but for the light and the new pathway it creates. It becomes easier to see that certain routes with certain people are not journeys to take, but to steer clear of and forget. I’m certainly no saint for we are all sinners in this world but my version of forgiveness is letting you go and I pray for your growth and prosperity.

Perhaps, from the ashes of our friendship, you will rise from the cinders as a phoenix: brilliant, resilient, and revering honesty as much as I do. I’ll watch you fly and hear about the stories of how high you soar but I will not be flying with you. Your journey is one I am no longer aligned with – our paths crossed for a moment in time but this time, you will go east and I north, a fate with a guarantee of never crossing paths again.