gone

Sometimes I wonder where all the feelings go.  The relationships that were once cherished just gone overnight.  Swallowed up by time and space.  You wake up one morning and keep living, but then days pass, then weeks, then months, then it's gone.  And you never quite notice it fading until that person just feels far away and reaching out to them is awkwardly uncomfortable.  They suddenly vanish from your mind and heart.  Instead of being the first person you want to share something with, they become unfamiliar...gone.  Then you stop to think when it all started to slip away.  You can't quite place a finger on a certain time or place cause a lifelong relationship with that person was established and all thoughts of it ending were denied and impossible to imagine.  It's incredibly sad.  I always wonder if it was me who did all the changing.  If I could be held responsible for such distance, but no.  Friendships and relationships are a two way street.  Does that mean when one person begins to slip, the other falters just the same?  It brings out an ugliness, a side that pains me and fills me with guilt.  I wish I could just touch that one moment it all turned dark and ceased to remain the same from that point on.  I wish I could reel them back in, but I can't seem to find the words or the will.  It feels too late, like the damage has been done.  Forgive and forget?  I can't forget and I can't seem to bring myself to forgive when I have grown to feel the emptiness.  Blank stares and awkward encounters.  Distance, drifting, unfamiliarity until one day it's just completely gone.  No second thought.  Like the last night of a childhood summer...gone at sunset and never the same again.