I thought I knew you; what did I know?

I'm looking through you
Where did you go?
I thought I knew you
What did I know?
You don't look different
But you have changed
I'm looking through you
You're not the same

Your lips are moving
I cannot hear
Your voice is soothing
But the words aren't clear
You don't sound different
I've learned the game
I'm looking through you
You're not the same

Why, tell me why
Did you not treat me right?
Love has a nasty habit
Of disappearing overnight

You're thinking of me
The same old way
You were above me
But not today
The only difference
Is you're down there
I'm looking through you
And you're nowhere

Why, tell me why
Did you not treat me right?
Love has a nasty habit
Of disappearing overnight

I'm looking through you
Where did you go?
I thought I knew you
What did I know?
You don't look different
But you have changed
I'm looking through you
You're not the same

Two years ago, a week after the funeral, I lost my best friend.
I'm trying to write about this. I still can't get myself to do it. To write about the whole scope of our relationship. How long was it? 20 years?
She had already stopped speaking to me over something else, before that. I had hurt her feelings inadvertenantly. She told me this when I finally spoke to her the week after the funeral when she basically told me she didn't want to be friends anymore. She could not handle my problems on top of hers, she said.

And I had just buried Nelson. Grief on grief? Yes. The two were so intertwined, then.

I only write about it now because it has been two years since I have last spoken to her and I have finally reached the point where I can say there is nothing left of that friendship to salvage. At one point I still had hopes, somewhere deep down. But I have to admit, now, if I saw her, what would I say to her? After two years? The two worst of my life? The anger has given way to a dull numbness. I would say hello, how are you, how are things. But we would not be friends again. Some broken things cannot be healed again. Not even the warm nostalgia of twenty years can mend this kind of silence.

There's so much I'm leaving out of this account still. This is as much as I can bear to write, now.

It's as much as I can do to admit that it's gone and won't come back. That she's gone and won't be my friend anymore. It hurts bitterly. Even after two years. Two and a half.