Does A Friendship Fade (When A Friend Goes Away) Poem by Jesse Ellsbury

Does a friendship fade when a friend goes away
never to return?
Or so it seems, I met him in a dream
of convenience,
odd-couple extremists
haunting a petrified city;
singing to those born without ears,
reciting to those who refused to hear
in the hollow hope that someone
somewhere might just buy a book.

Does a friendship fade when a friend goes away
halfway across the world?
Where the phones are different,
the stones are all ancient
and people hear God talk.
But this far away, it seemed every day
we’d unite with a pipe,
deny our own limits,
and say, “That’s life,
when will we live it? ”

Does a friendship fade when a friend goes away
but the mutual heart still beats?
Amidst the hookah smoke
and the sound of me chok-
ing, do the men we used to be drone on
that we should be kings but are stuck as pawns?
Are we still getting lost between the bar
and where we thought we left the car?
Or are we still haggling
over how much we spend
and how much we’re saddling?
Those aren’t the times that will persist,
in the search for girls, we found friendship.

Does a friendship fade when a friend goes away
like the moon dims into the day?
Is it really so fragile that it starts to unravel
with the unveiling of the sun’s rays?
I’d like to think that it’s a bit stronger,
but I’m not sure we can make it last longer
than proximity would have us say.
But I never claimed to know what comes to be.
Does a friendship fade when a friend goes away?
I’ll have to wait and see.