for the prompt "On Friendship"

I might come up with something else, since I feel like this is not what a poem "On Friendship" was supposed to be like... but oh well. This was what I got out of the prompt. And I think it kind of does work from it. But whatever. This is it for now. Sorry.
Background info: It is something about one of my closest friendships, that ended when my friend died.



I've hidden the picture in my closet.

I found it, yesterday
while I was cleaning,
looking at things I once used
To decorate white-washed walls.
It was hiding,
innocuously,
under a map of Rome,
between a child's drawing
and a large print
of a sunset.

I knelt on the floor,
looking at the picture
for a while
a minute
a year.
Girls walked
laughing
past my door
as I sat
and looked
and remembered.

Someone outside my world would see:
A laughing face.
Nice background, green leaves, houses.
Out of focus.
The bad photographer
I confess
is me.

I look at this picture
and see:
Laughing, walking,
Chinese food, movies,
Racist jokes and holding hands.
And there, finally, hiding-
behind an unfocused tree, maybe-
words
and a train.

A dull ache at the back of my head.
Not painful, but sort of like
spinning around too fast...
Or maybe
the aftermath of pain,
the throbbing that doesn't exactly hurt,
but doesn't feel too nice
either.

A moment, just a moment,
where I considered the wall.
Empty wall everywhere
surrounding me...
Plenty of room
for a four by six photograph...
But no. A moment
and he was propped up in the back of my closet
smiling at my dirty laundry.
Smiling in the last moment of light
before...

...I slid the door shut
and sat down again
on the stained blue carpet.
Another group of giggling females paraded by,
and I wondered
Who is it
I'm ashamed of?


My friend

or myself?