Abundant moments to
Smile every once in awhile,
I'm complete in the
Knowledge of oneself.

I don’t normally share my personal life with strangers, but for some reason, I never got my chance to do it. She was always the first one to speak of how we met, the things I did for her, and whatever about me she loved.

My sophomore year in high school was coming to an end. It was late February, and my friend Jared and I were in biology class at the beginning of lunch. We were talking about nerdy things like volunteering at some event after school. Just two young 16-year-olds hoping to lend a helping hand. And that’s when she walked into the room, radiating like an angel from heaven. Her blonde hair was glowing immaculately, her crystal blue eyes had a shine, her skin looked smooth and soft, but the one thing I noticed most was her white, clean teeth with braces. Haha. I fell in love with her smile and laugh as she walked into the room. Her giggly and bubbly attitude caught my attention first. That’s when Jared introduced me to Julia. I threw a few jokes into our conversation and held her eyes with mine, just hoping she noticed my undivided attention to her every word. Standing there with her felt like forever…

Times changed; she and I came to the realization that we were just two people destined to meet and help each other through our past. We broke up after my third year in college. She went to India, and I joined the Marine Corps. Since then, we haven’t spoken to each other in a little over four years.

I'm locked away kept inside a castle that's dark and grey. I've condemned myself to be imprisoned because I refused to listen, now im here where there are distant screams but I feel I'm here alone waiting for the light that's never shown. When I walk through the halls I can smell the burning dead, maybe its a silent scream that carries it from one of the rooms doused in dread. A candelabra lights my way while I wander the hallways searching for a reason but just when I see any they seem to turn and walk away/ I have to make my way through heavy wooden doors that separate these vast corridors, afraid to move fast for the fear of making a sound because something breathes beneath the floorboards. Time has no purpose here inside the stone walls, thoughts got away from me and now when I stop I can only hear as they crawl. I cannot leave so I attack myself in the room of mirrors, sanity is not present here only remnants of decisions that remain unclear.

So much death.
Twenty-two years of life
and I have experienced,
so
much
death.
My heroes all died,
as they will,
when youthful ignorance
turns to a bitter understanding on the reality of men.
We are flawed.
But it didn't stop there.
No,
year after year it seems,
death reaches all too soon.
A drug overdose,
a car accident,
a suicide.
One by one,
friends, family and enemies alike,
all have passed.
Some sought the grave,
some simply stumbled upon it.
It's all the same though,
the dead slumber;
the living carry on.
Until they don't.