Alec Solomita’s fiction has appeared in the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, and The Drum (audio), among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal. His poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, The Galway Review, Bold + Italic, Litbreak, Subterranean Blue Poetry, The Blue Nib, Red Dirt Forum, and elsewhere.  His chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017 and is still available at Finishing Line Press. His first full-length book of poetry, “Hard To Be a Hero,” was published  by Kelsay Press in 2021. Both can be found on Amazon. He’s just finished another, “Small Change.” He lives in Massachusetts.

Another Friend Gone

Not to death this time.
By attrition? I don’t know.
Maybe. Maybe we just wore
each other down over
the years, fifty of them.

Maybe we simply grew fatigued,
he by my dull melancholy,
my sulkiness, my robust
romance with the bottle, me
by his steady disdain and loftiness.

He’d often been on the assured side
of things. And often annoyed at my
“Slavic gloom” as he called it.
But like slow snow piling up,
our failings burgeoned with age.

I fell into deeper grief and bitterness
while he became aloof and blissful
in his thriving self-regard. I don’t judge.
I’m not saying I blame him.
But mostly him.