It was only at the end

that I realised that I was my imaginary friend’s

imaginary friend.

That all I had desired and loved was really all they had ever

wanted.  Even if at the moment of desperation I should make the ultimate

sacrifice, arms outstretched and one foot hovering in the air ready to leap

a thousand buildings and a hundred memories with

a smile on my invisible face;

they would pull me back, talk loudly and with a blaze

of anger and energy

admonish me by saying it was not up to

the person who was ready to fly

 and that if I went they surely should never have the chance to

make me really

exist.

Of course all the mistakes were mine,

every one, of that I hold my hand up and say it was nothing to do

with my imaginary friend. My  friend was perfect,

as perfect as you could possibly be. A face that changed for every whim

and every mood, always charming, always the better half

and everything that I should have been given the chance to be.

I always thought that they were a product of over active imagination,

somebody I conjured up like some third

rate magician that you bump

into when half drunk at a stag or hen party and before

they pull the penny from behind

your ear.  It seems I was the one, able to write my own existence

and bring myself into their mind and yet be in control

of my imaginary friend’s imaginary friend.

Ian D. Hall 2014.