Drifting Through Life

I saw him as he grew up; I watched him as he aged. As he changed and shifted, being molded by the hands of time. At the start he was alone, he would remain that way for now. He was hollow, desiring for the friendship of another. And all I did was stand by and watch. He drifted through his early years with blissful agony and found himself, suddenly, a teenager. I watched it all. He had changed. No longer the boy I knew, no longer the outcast, at least on the surface. He had made friends, found the bond that he desired, yet he still found himself hollow. Never knowing why, never finding out. Friends surrounded him, alas, lonelier than ever. And all I did was stand by and watch. I saw his pained laughs, his fake smiles, everything. He was no longer the boy that I once knew; he had been twisted, thoughts perverted by growing up too fast. But not done yet, still searching, still changing. He grew up, and reverted, back to the crippling sense of being alone that he once had. Instead of pen and paper, it was a knife and his wrist. Still an artist, just this time with different tools. And all I did was stand by and watch. The older he got, the more serious everything became; all leading to the day that he dreaded. No longer was his pen a pen, but a gun; no more was there any paper, but his head. As he locked the door, we could both hear his mother’s frantic pounding outside. He sat on his bed and I knew that this was it; this was the end of the boy that I had watched grow up. And all I could possibly do was sit next to him and watch; watch this boy who had never found the one thing he needed most, still a hollow boy. As he picked up his pen and wrote his final sentence, he met his end, so did I. This boy that I had watched drift through life, never happy, never fulfilled, was I. Life had happened to me and passed me by. And all I had ever done was stand by and watch.