It's just loss. Just grief. So ordinary.
It's just "gone forever".
What a word, gone is.
Gone.
I would venture to guess that any room you might speak that word into would ring hollow and empty as a cavern, no matter its size or appearance.
After all, you are, from me.
Just that:
Only gone.

It seems hideously unfair-
And how gauche of me to utter it,
Nobody says it,
Even when we all know-
That some people
Are just more important
Than others.
Not for any real superiority
But for the fact that
We may love some
But not the others.

You've carved me like a river, love.
Don't you see?
You touched me and I caved like a landslide,
But you kept on.
Slowly you cut a path through my heart,
Down, down,
A chasm, a rift, down to the core,
Hard and sharp like rock
Worn down by white water.
You've carved me deep, love...
And still you pound through my veins like rapids.

The world says that hope is feeble.
That it's like an ember buried in the ashes of a quenched fire,
Tiny but glowing, fragile in the vastness of midnight.
But I think that hope is truly terrible not because it is easily extinguished, but because it ISN'T.
Hope is no danger, really, if it flares and fades like a little flame snuffed by a stiff breeze, but no.
Hope is underneath.
Hope lingers, long after the wreckage has been gutted.
After everything has been burned to ash,
After every cinder has died out there, and all that is left is a charred skeleton on the scorched ground and a pile of ashes,
After even the blackest ruin is once again cold, hope lives beneath.
An underground blaze ready to rise again at the smallest hint of fuel.
An errant twig, not yet blackened by flames, falls light as a feather, and ignites before it even hits the bed of ashes.
Hope LINGERS underneath, ready to pounce.
It waits.
It sticks around like ****** sticks, and you just can't get rid of the **** stuff, no matter how hard you try.
Hope CANNOT be killed, in some instances.
And people would go on and on, in their ignorance, in praise of such bravery,
Of such a courageous little match struck against the face of the night like a mockery,
But it's just not true.
The way a fire lives on beneath the ground of the places it has recently seared and withered
So that everything must be drenched before it is at all safe to step nearby,
Hope sinks below the ruins of the soul and burns slow and white hot.
Embers are not feeble, they are the hottest part of the fire,
They bite the deepest and they hold on with barbs beneath the skin, waiting.
Hope is supposed to be a pleasant word, full of righteousness and pride and purity.
But that's not what hope IS, only what we intended it to be.
What we wish it was.
Hope is a human concept, and as with all human concepts, it was created in perfection and evolved
Like a virus, took on a life of its own,
And became something altogether different and more menacing than it was ever meant to be.
Hope can keep you going, or it can slowly cook you.
It can sustain you, or poison you, for an entire lifetime.
Depends, you see, on just what it is you're hoping for.
Hope for a brave impossibility, and it's grand, yes!
Hope for a deceased dream, a buried love, a second chance, and, darling...
Hope kills.

To forget is not to heal.
You must stare in the face whatever unmade you, face it, live with it.
It must be your shadow,
Tap you on the shoulder throughout your day,
Tangle in your feet as you climb the stairs,
Curl up with you at night when you sleep.
You must learn to make a space for it.
You must touch it, force yourself to sidle closer,
Grit your teeth and refuse to cringe away.
You must make friends with pain.
It doesn't flee the way people say it does.

Maybe it does for some, but not for me.
Do I beg it to stay? Of course not.
But it does.
And it will.
And it is braver to try to look at it without flinching than it is to cower and pretend it doesn't exist
Even when it prowls in the corners of my vision.
Would you think to assume that everyone feels in the same way?
The way we experience emotion is perhaps the most unique thing about us,
For the degree of difference between people is staggering.
The universal things like suffering are made utterly individual by our reactions, our coping mechanisms, and how long they last.
Guess what? Some people hurt forever.
But that does not mean we have to suffer forever.
It only means that we need to take the long road, shake hands with agony, and learn to live with our crippling loves.
To look away,
To run with it nipping at my heels forever,
To hide in the dark and never face the truth
Would be no way to exist.
To forget is NOT to heal.
To forget is only weakness, and vulnerability.
Scars mean, "I survived."
Reminders of the wounds are shrines to time lost, to life changed, to things learned.
To forget would only mean to walk into the same massacre masked by a different face.
And people like me? We don't survive things twice.
It may take years, absurdly.
But I will do this right, and when it is done I will not be repeating my pain.
After all, there are so many ways in which I HAVEN'T hurt yet.
They really should have a turn,
For if life is sprinkled with suffering,
At least switch up the style.

I think somewhere along the road to Hell and back, I decided that protecting myself was just not worth it anymore.
Not because I wasn't worth preserving, but because I realized that I would take a beating regardless.
I'd rather live taking every chance I can to be happy, and embracing those chances that work out with the passion of the dying, than
Pull my punches, hide my feelings, and end up with regrets.
Because, the secret you learn when you finally hit bottom,
When you get your choice to continue existing or give up?
We are all dying.
Quickly and slowly, we are all hourglasses glued to the table.
We have a set amount of time, slipping away second by second.
What we do with it makes us who we are.
Whether we realize that it is simply not worth having regrets determines whether on our deathbeds,
Five minutes from now or 90 years,
We smile in remembrance or cry in bitterness.
You can take that trip to Hell. We all can.
I do not believe I am special for having made it, and come back.
I think I have simply done it earlier.
Trying to keep myself from getting hurt? That's just a lost cause if I ever saw one.
And pointless in many many ways.
I am aiming to make my hurt mean something. To make it count.
To make it worth the joy I get from never ever ever holding back.
It's just not worth it to me to hide behind pride or fear.
I've been there, near the end, and I know how much it *****.
But there is always a choice.
And those who risk everything for love are strong enough to make it,
Even when life brings them to lose all of it and stand at the decision between continuing and ceasing.
The gift of pain like that is that we find that there is something to continue for.

Here in the dark with the music all around me like water, am I a tragedy?
If I walked and kept walking, would I shed what has happened to me?
Am I repulsed as I used to be, by my past and my helplessness, or is this what healing feels like?
Not the presence of joy, but the absence of pain?
We can never go back.
Like a crystal vase shattered on the floor, wholeness just isn't possible the way it used to be.
We can never regain innocence we lose.
I can't tell if I still mourn it, or if I just recognize the space it used to fill.
What will fill it now?
And yet it doesn't hurt.
Will I end up crumbling like you, darling, in a beautiful melody?
In bittersweetness and chagrin?
In irony?
It is bitter cold outside, and I don't recognize my silhouette in the mirror.
Is what it means to stop being a child simply to exist with losses you never thought you could survive?
Am I old, again, in another way? Too soon, again?
You'd think I'd be used to that by now.
I can stop now, you know.
Stop and think without fear.
I used to be running, running constantly from any moment to remember, from any reminder.
And now I have suddenly found that I can stand stock still,
And I don't know what to do.
I've been running for nearly a year.
How will I unlearn my curses and find a new way to exist?
But...thank you, world, for this chance.
I had stopped hoping,
So many times had I deceived myself that I was whole.
I didn't know that the only way to be okay was to accept that I never will be again.
There is a life in that, you know.
I think, for most people, that that is the difference between childhood and adulthood. The moment when you accept that you will never be innocent again.
The shock always hurts, the ripping pain of having it torn from you by whatever suddenly stripped the last of it away,
But once all the denial and grief and anger and madness has ebbed, you realize that
You have become someone new.

We exist in a world filled with people who beg every day for love.
For connection. For tenderness. For attention.
And yet, try giving it to them.
Try being someone else's design, the one who will give everything to them.
They are like children who wish to eat an entire chocolate cake and regret it halfway through.
They make themselves sick on love.
And we, the ones who have been made to fit the idealistic wish, find that we have been very cruelly misled.
We have been created for a world which does not exist,
And for people who are only capable of receiving the affection we offer
In their dreams.
There are two types of people in the world:
Those who wish for love, and those who are the wish for love.
And neither is ever satisfied,
Because both believe the other is designed for them,
When in reality, they are simply alone.
The lonely ones find the people who will make them lonelier.
The clingy ones find the people who will surely reject them.
The lovers find the people who will abuse their affections.
The dreamers of true love find the people whom they wish could fulfill their wishes,
Not the people who can.
And the people who can find the people who cannot appreciate a dream come true.

We are tragedies, my darlings.
We reject ourselves and one another.
I am aiming to be better, to give what I can. But most of the time?
I just feel like a freak, with my emotions.
Even when they are not directed at you, you feel their threat looming and shy away.
The real reason I am so very easy going?
It is a disguise. An apology to the world for loving it too much.
Not even that- for being ABLE to.
It is restraint based on respect.
Even when I put up the walls of "it's all okay" and "leave if you want",
Somehow they all feel the pressure of the something that is wrong with me.
What is it?
Why do the books all worship love like mine, but the people all fear it?
I watch these people grovel and plead for love,
Love that I can give,
And I sit and hold my tongue, because I know by now.
After all this time,
I finally know that they do not want what they ask for.

They just want to ask for it.

"Bye, Lee!" chirps one of my friends. I muster a smile for her, put a little enthusiasm into my voice, "Bye!" and start walking down the side of the road, home. Or wherever. It's nighttime, and mist hangs in the air, so thick in spots that it's almost rain. I put my ipod on, smooth my hair back, look up at the few stars. It's cool but so humid that I can feel the air pressing on me.
"Elevator straight into my skull..."
No street lights. I like it that way. I like it better when the darkness isn't broken by pools of light. I can think better, then. Not that I really want to think. Hence the loud music. I know I should change the song, put on something less smooth and dreamy, less dark, less thoughtful. But my nature is to dwell on whatever mood I'm in. And tonight I'm in the mood to lose all my choices. I think about her. About her lips, red in the bright lights. About how she wouldn't really touch me. About what it would mean if she had. I think about giving up. I think about how empty my life would be if I did. I think about how hard it promises to be if I don't, and how slim my chances really are. I think about everyone else she could pick. I think about the time she picked me. I can't shut it off, there on my long road in the misty darkness. It just runs by itself, a never ending stream of thought. It hurts! God, it hurts to think that I may never really get to love her again. To kiss her. To hold her. It hurts to think of the very real possibility that she's just being nice, letting me near her. It hurts to think that maybe she wants what I want, but will refuse to let it happen. It all hurts. And I stop, hold my head a minute, scrape my hair back from my eyes and look up, trying to regain control. It hurts so that for a moment I can see myself curling up right there, a tight little ball, and crying until my tears run out. I can feel her arms around me, the ghost of what used to be. They are so comforting that I could cry myself to death, knowing they aren't real.
"On the edge of a dream that you had..."
It's not the fact that she's not here, not just that. It's that she could be, so easily, and she's not. And that drives it home into my heart. I am disinclined to lie to myself, about anything. But I know that I could lie to myself over her. I could do that, I am that vulnerable. What hurts is that I don't know if I'm lying to myself. That I could so easily see the signs that she doesn't want me, so easily, but that I ignore them. I don't know what I believe. I don't know what to think. When I look into her face, I can read nothing there. No joy to see me, no disgust, no love, no hatred. Somehow it's almost worse to think that perhaps she feels nothing at all. Indifference is more unendurable than hate.
"Has anybody ever told you it's not coming true?"
But no, no she can't feel nothing... Why would she choose me for anything ever if she didn't feel something? God, I can't hold it all. My head spins. I feel my arms wrapped around me, around my stomach so tight that I am forced to my knees. Get a grip, Lee. Get a ******* grip. Fists. I stab my nails into my palms, feel the half moons of blood rising as I force myself to stand. I'm too tired for this. Too tired to worry, too tired to hurt. I just want comfort. Her comfort. But she won't give it. She is far away. I can feel her distance when she is two inches from me. I can feel her pushing me away even when she hugs me. Especially then. It tears my heart up. I feel the tears run down my cheeks, and I am ashamed, defeated. And all of a sudden, in my desolation, I hit the plateau that never used to be there. I level out and suddenly a heavy apathy weighs my limbs like lead.
"You can hold on but I wouldn't waste your time..."
Suddenly I stand completely still, a realization slowly dawning in me, raising my eyes, relaxing my stance of anguish. I can feel my body loosening. My mind empties, and there is the center line of the road in my head. It's white and broken. The pavement is smooth and dark, not yet marred by cracks or crumbles.
"Farewell my..."
And abruptly there I am, standing on the line. I missed a whole moment. My eyes feel glazed. My breaths come like in sleep. To think of anything elicits no response, no reaction, no recognition. All I am is one moment.
"Black balloon."
I lay down, carefully, so that I fit perfectly on the line, and stare up at the black sky above me. Repeat, repeat, repeat, the song plays over and over, too many times to count, deepening the darkness around me until I feel as if I have never been anything or anywhere or anyone other than this. I am only darkness, and there are no edges to me. It hits me like a wave, the truth. That she's not coming back. That I am wasting my time. That I am alone. But where I expect tears, panic, anguish, I find only a sick calm. The kind of calm sureness that comes with finally finding the truth, and not caring one bit, because you know exactly what to do.
"Ahhh, ahhh. Ahhhh. Ahhh, ahh, ah, ah..."
Five minutes ago- was it five or fifty?-there was no way out of it. There was no solution but to move forward. Nothing I could do. Now, I cannot feel desperate. I can only feel this sort of sad, calm obsession.
"Farewell my..."
This drive, this compulsion, with a touch of melancholy but a peace almost like sleep. I sit up. Push myself to my feet. Stand in the very center of the road. Headlights are creeping around the corner. I stand there and stare at them. It's odd to see. Have you ever stood before a car, directly in front of it, and it was so dark you could only see the headlights, growing, growing...? I suppose you probably haven't. It is almost a spiritual experience, seeing them loom ahead of me. They pull me toward them like a magnet, and my body sways and leans forward. Here they come, right here, so close... My eyes are full of the glow of those headlights. They are the same as me. Empty and full of cold light.
"Black balloon. The weather had its way with you."
And now I am sprawled on the road. Below me I see blood. I see limbs askew. I am above myself, suspended within the mist, and before all the lights invade and pull us apart, I see the girl I used to be. She is so pale. So small. So fragile. For the first time in so long, her face does not show the lines of pain. She looks so...peaceful. And I feel no regret. I know I am unraveling, and I am so glad to feel myself slipping away. I feel my memories fading, my cares, my empathy, my hatred, my pain, and finally...my love. I am nothing. Finally. Finally I am nothing.
"Farewell my..."
Going...going....
"Black balloon."
Gone.