All you had to you was tell him from the get-go that you weren’t interested …

But you were, or gave him that impression … on purpose, 

Up until he called out the untoward behavior of another, 

Which he did not realize was calling you out, 

And only then did you reject him, 

After baiting him into a confession of interest, so you could crush him harder. 

But, even then, you did not tell him you didn’t want to talk, as you later claimed in a lie. 

Yes, it would have led to hard feelings, but that’s what you had already set up, 

Inescapable. 

No, you told him you were friends, always, and he took you at your word. 

You didn’t tell him that you shit-talked him behind his back. 

No, you kept it going, claiming it was because you were a nice person. 

It was neither nice nor honest, but you weren’t even honest with yourself,

As you enjoyed it, as much as you told yourself you didn’t. 

You kept it going when it began to fade away, when he didn’t say anything for days. 

Then, torn in heart and mind, you bowed to pressure and shot him, 

For no reason, you took aim and blew him away, 

And, oh yes, did he take it hard and act badly. 

You set him up, whether you meant to or not, and then you shot him. 

And now, even after all that, you refuse to be honest, to admit any of it, 

Letting horrible people invent horrible things from your revisions of history, 

Revisions you know are not true. 

You will steal his ability to take them to task without doubt for what they did, the laws they broke, 

Because you cannot be honest, and yet you claim faith. 

Faith in what? 

They didn’t help you, but enabled you, treated you like a child so that they could pat themselves on the back for their bigotry. 

And you come to their aid by remaining silent. 

How do you survive day to day knowing that your silence makes you as bad or worse than those who abused you, just as deceitful, just as arrogant? 

How do you live with yourself, knowing you took no blame and sentenced him to unending grief, when you did care for him, and you know it, and he knows it? 

What do you gain but a permanent enemy and a lifelong scar that you could choose to heal?