A BEST FRIEND

A BEST FRIEND
five or ten times each night
he’d call me on the phone
or send me text messages
to inform me of just drunk he was
“aww, I’m soooo druuunkkk right nowww…”
as a practice
we never answered each other’s calls
we had that kind of relationship
where we could only associate through
voicemails and text messages
on the phone or in person
we didn’t even really like each other
so each night he’d call
leave all those voicemails
send all those text messages
about how he’d thrown up
on some girl in the bar
or how the police were after him
or how that morning he’d woken up
in the hospital
I would listen to one or two
of the messages
then delete the rest
and go on with my day
when it was my turn
I’d go on some little bender
spend a couple days and nights
inside the bottle
leave him maybe forty voicemails
of which he’d listen to one or two
then delete all the rest
we were always competing
with everything we did
if one of us was in a bind
doing terrible with life and women
(which we both usually were)
the other would try to outdo him
do even worse with life or women
and in the rare times
when one of us was doing well
getting our shit together
avoiding troubles with life and women
not feeling like death
at every single hour of the day
the other would begin to brag
about how well he now had it
how great things were going with his life
and with women and so on
it was a strange relationship we had
and although it seemed fruitless and miserable
most of the time
he was one of my best friends
in the whole entire world