Letting go is a travesty of forgetting

Sunday night,
my friend was crying
about the way everyone he loves
seem to leave him
one way or another,
when his girlfriend's mother
tried to strangle
her, and to him
it felt like
she was wringing out
his happiness
to hang up on a line
like a noose.
he said he was deliberately
pouring all the bleach
down the bathroom sink
so it would unclog,
and a clear sink could maybe,
just maybe, make up for the fact
his mind was like
a traffic accident frustration times ten
and he needed to feel something,
anything except the need
to drink it all,
said the red stop signs
only seemed like omens,
said the green lights were the go-aheads,
the motivational speakers for relapse.
i told him to paint lines of scarlet
on paper, walls, anywhere
except skin,
so that when he rinsed the paintbrush
the pinkish tinge
might remind him of sunsets
and how endings
are always a beginning
for newer paintings
he said that was
better than his dreams,
but he still wanted to
crash a car off a cliff,
in his cynical and sadistic
state,
and when people are so adamant about
going, that convincing them to
stay feels like you're stuck in quicksand
then ive learnt the best thing to do
is
  let
      go.
let them
        float
away.
you tried your hardest and that should
be enough,
yet i cant seem to get my head around
how somebody could be
so awfully
unlucky.

(mine)