A barrage of thoughtless words.
A pointless bickering.

An errant blade.
A scratch of betrayal.

Hands clenched in anger,
A sting in the chest.

Uncontrolled tears fell,
At the unjust persecution.

A forsaken friendship.
A path to loneliness.

Alone,
They remained.

Apart,
They stayed.

Silently torturing one another,
They did.

Maintaining a facade of hatred,
They lived

Silently suffering,
In regret’s embrace.

Until the day,
They fell away,
In old age.

Consumed by False Hatred,
A costly pretense.

Away from Happiness,
Away from What Could’ve Been.

A realization that came,
Too close to the end.

On the deathbed,
When Pride let go.

‘Tis a Pity,
We live but once.

Into the casket,
And into the ground.

Wet Tears,
Stained the Stones that Remained.

The only evidence,
Of the Lives Once Lived.

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This story was inspired by a writing prompt from the “Promptly Written” Publication.

**The Beginning
**_Start your story with this line
_There was nothing left but a pile of stones.

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Apologies for the extremely liberal way of using this prompt. I hadn’t realized that the “There was nothing left but a pile of stones.” was expected to be at the start, rather than a generic topic, until after I finished the piece.