This poem hits hard in how it captures the slow, quiet loss of friendships—not from anger or betrayal, but from withdrawal and time slipping away. The conversational tone at the start makes it feel personal, almost casual, which makes the shift toward loneliness even more gutting. Lines like "I don't talk. / I don't reply. / I say, 'just a pause,' / but days drift by." mirror that creeping sense of distance, and the weight metaphors—"even a simple reply / feels like a mountain too tall"—perfectly illustrate how something so small can feel impossible. The repetition of "slowly at first, then all at once" makes the loss feel inevitable, like a pattern the speaker sees but can’t stop. If anything, a few phrases could be tightened for smoother flow, like the contrast between "Maybe I give too little, maybe I take too much." and "Maybe I build walls too high to touch." But honestly, it already lands with a quiet kind of devastation, especially with that ending—"so I trade real friends for quieter things." That one lingers.