Author’s Note

Pulled Away Again came from that quiet guilt that builds when you fade from people you love—not because you’ve stopped caring, but because you’re too tangled in your own thoughts to reach out. It’s about the strange duality of existing in someone’s life and yet feeling like a ghost in it, the ache of being remembered and forgotten at the same time. I wrote this as a kind of apology, but not to anyone specific. It’s for all the friendships I’ve let drift away, for all the messages I’ve left unanswered, for every time I thought silence would hurt less than presence… for every time I thought existing in my head was easier than simply existing in the world.

Pulled Away Again
(Schrödinger’s Friendship)
Poetry by Rowan Evans

Fuck… I pulled away again—
disappeared into shadows,
became a bad friend.

I don’t keep in touch,
and I know it sucks.
But,
what am I supposed to say?
I’m sorry,
but you’ll tell me
I don’t need to apologize…

And I know,
the sorry’s not for you.
It’s for me,
because I feel like a bad friend.
I feel like the sad friend.

The…
nobody really
wants around friend.

The giver,
the lover,
the seer
of broken things.
The seer of beauty
in all the broken things.

I see the gold
that fills the cracks.
But only in others.
Those Kintsugi souls,
they shine so bright.

While I just feel trapped…
while I sit here still cracked,
pieces scattered, never put back
together.

Fuck…
I pulled away again,
isolated, faded from perception.
Because I feel…
You’re better off without me.

I’ll amount to nothing,
And I know
I’m not the only one
that doubts me.

Fuck…
I don’t keep in touch,
and I know it sucks.
Yeah, I know,
every—
I’m sorry…
It’s not for you.
It’s for me.

Because I feel
like I’m a bad friend.
The out of sight
out of mind friend.
The one nobody remembers,
but somehow not forgotten.

It’s a—
Schrödinger’s Friendship.
I’m both in your life
and not.
I am just walking rot.

Sorry for everything
I’ve never said,
sorry for every moment,
every thought.
Especially the thoughts
I thought I forgot.

I’m sorry for the way
I fade
into obscurity.
You’re always on mind
but I’m afraid
of what I’ll say.

Will today be the day?
Will I finally I slip up?
Say something stupid,
and fuck it up?
Be just another disappointment—
A regret etched in history,
a blemish on an otherwise
positive memory.

I’m a face
you can’t place.
A name
that rings no bells,
rings no memory.
I am
my own
worst enemy.

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