i still am trying to hold back my tears as i write this down. i thought about on my way home and debated with myself for a good 3 hours and decided that i have to write this, if not for people, for myself.

i visited the ward as a visitor today. it felt weird to be on the other side of the door. it felt weird to be on the other side of the glass, and it felt weird to look into the eyes of someone i once knew.

it hurt that as soon as i walked through the open doors, i hear the screams of a man speaking in a language i did not understand. it hurt to watch him being pinned down by 2 men almost twice his size. it hurt to watch his mental pain being temporarily stopped with physical pain.

it hurt as we started talking. it took almost every ounce of courage inside of me to hold my tears back, because i knew that me crying would dampen his spirits and affect his recovery. and i knew exactly what that feels like.

it hurt to sit back and watch him explain his illness in terms i knew far too well. it hurt to hear him say " stay here, you would understand this more than anybody else. " it hurt that i understood. it hurt that for that brief moment, i didn't want to understand. i didn't want to be in there. my legs were shaking but i listened anyway.

it hurt to hear him explain how the electricity worked and hurt his jaws. it hurt to tell him to be strong, because i knew how much it would take out of him to just try. it hurt that he cracked up jokes in the middle of our conversations, i didn't feel like laughing at all.

it hurt to watch so many people suffering from illnesses they never asked for, it hurt to watch so many of you suffering from the pain you don't deserve. it hurt to just sit there and not be able to do anything about it. it hurt.

but it hurt because it wasn't my place to feel hurt, it was yours. it was your place to scream and shout. it was your place to cry and break down into a million pieces.

but it hurt because you couldn't, because in your head you are fine. in your head, you're at work. in your head, none of this ever happened. in your head, 20 cops didn't restrain you. in your head, this is a perfect world.



but it didn't hurt because i knew deep in my heart that no matter what, the way i feel about you will never change. the strong, courageous, brave, joyful, kind, happy man that i grew up knowing will always have a place in my heart. no amount of ect's and antidepressants will take that away.

*so thank you, for opening my eyes to all the pain in the world.  thank you, for making me understand that there is greater suffering in the world. thank you, for teaching me the value of gratefulness. thank you, for educating me, even if it was through your suffering.

They may remember my breakup because it kept coming up. Kept coming back. Some may think that my breakup was the thing that hurt the most last year. It wasn’t.

It hurt more to get my heart broken by somebody else.
It hurt more that I had to see her around every time I was around my friends.
It hurt that her name came up everywhere I went, as obscure as it was.
It hurt more that my fondest memories of last year weren’t with my former love, but with her.
It hurt more that I considered my masterpiece of a song to be one about her, and not about my former love.
It hurt more that gazing into her eyes I saw a myriad of puzzles to be solved and a seemingly endless, impossible maze that I wanted to travel in, but never got to.
It hurt more that I bottled these feelings in because I was in a relationship.
It hurt more, the nights I kept up, thinking about what if I gave it just a little more time.
It hurt more to think that maybe I made the wrong decision about who I loved.
It hurt more to rush into love like I did, and miss out on the one thing that may have been better.
It hurt more never to see her again.
It hurt more to forget her smile than my former love.
It hurt more that her laugh was one of the most beautiful sounds that I’ve forgotten.
It hurt more that I stayed up all night thinking more about her than my former love.
It hurt more to know maybe I fell in love with her more than I did my former love.
It hurt more to think about how much it must have hurt my former love to find out.
It hurt more to think how much I took from my former love, and how I threw her away in the end.
It hurt more to use the word threw away instead of broke up in that last sentence.
It hurt more that maybe a part of me still wishes things went differently
It hurt more to feel that wave of anguish to know she didn’t love me back
It hurt more to feel that feeling of defeat to think I tried so hard
It hurt more to feel nothing for my former love, and how guilty I should have felt but didn’t.
It hurt more to realize though, that through all of it, I wasn’t blameless. I had fault.
It hurt more than a thousand papercuts, cutting away, slowly at me. Taking bit by bit of myself.
It hurts most that my break up didn’t hurt me at all. It was her breaking my heart that hurt the most.

It stings now to know
That there’s a part of me that may still love her, wondering if she loved me back.
But now I’ll never know.

everything is a blessing in disguise if you allow it to be