It Still Hurts.

It still hurts. You tell me it's not allowed to, or say it shouldn't matter. That's in the past. Buried. Dead. Forgotten.

Well, it isn't to me.

If I could go back and change everything, I would. But I can't, so the alternative is living with the scars and replaying twisted home movies on the back of my eyelids. I remember every detail. Every time I felt a bit closer to the closet, and the noose attached. Torn away from this world just a bit more every day by the coldness, the calculation of apathy.

You had a party and I wasn't invited, even though I was the only one to give you a good birthday present that day. When I asked why, you said only good friends were invited.

The implication being, of course, that I was complete fucking trash.

I wanted to see that movie. I made plans to. I was excited. I told my parents I'd be home late that night. Then I called, and no one picked up. You told them not to. And when you decided that you were going, they changed their minds about me.

I sat in a parking lot praying for a drive-by shooting.

I didn't hate you for what you said, or what you did, but for all the things you didn't do, or all the things I could never understand. Why try to make amends? Why not just leave it at silence? I missed the shit out of you every waking second, but I was almost content in our separation until you came back from a summer away with some spiritual epiphany on how shitty you had been toward me.

We met. You offered to buy me coffee. I said no. Being the complete fucking pussy I am, we skirted the issue entirely, and I was afraid to make eye contact. Because I knew once I did, you'd win. And you did, because I believed you, and for one elusive moment I was flooded with hope and the promise of one good year after not sleeping the 365 days prior, and being pushed from pill to pill. Trying to fill the emptiness in all the worst ways.

Of course, it wasn't real. It couldn't be. Life isn't like that. I thought maybe it was, or could have been. I'm not religious, but when you called, I actually thanked God and thought about miracles and declared I would never do anything bad ever again.

Three weeks later, it was the same as it ever was.

Five years later, I'm still fucked up about it. Even though we talk every day.

It hurt so much that I can't get rid of the scars. It hurts more that you think it's fucking ridiculous I even bother to remember these things. But they're a part of me. They shaped me, for better or worse. I tried to kill myself twice. You don't think you remember those things? I'm stronger for dropping the noose, though, and no one will ever break me again...even if the rest of the world will pay the price for my callousness.

You can't let anyone get close.

It's not even that I want to blame you for these things, though yes, I think it was your fault. It's that I need you to know that I did not have one happy moment for almost two years. I was drowning. There wasn't a pill I didn't take, finite plan I didn't hatch or apocalypse I didn't wish. And you were okay with this. And that bothers me. A lot. It bothers me that, deep down, you don't feel I'm entitled to those memories. That it was just kids being dumb kids. Because it was more than that. There was a certain cruelty you can't deny. And I paid the price. Jesus Christ, did I pay the price.