I crave adventure in ways I myself cannot understand.
But I think that’s what losing a loved one does to you. It creates a sort of entrapment that cannot be overcome. You’ve lost something incredibly valuable and you’re left with no means of ever getting it back. You begin to gravitate towards all open roads because you’ve got no ties holding you down. It’s almost like deep down, you’re searching for what’s been lost.

I think feelings of loss and feelings of entrapment go hand in hand. If you blink, you might miss how quickly they follow each other into the room.

You’re now alone in this world.
You’ve been left behind and you cannot help but feel trapped in this place where you cannot find what’s been taken.

And I try, I do really try to remember that loved ones are only ours to borrow and never to keep but it’s easier said than done. Especially when you lose a twin.

The loneliness is incredible but the suffocation that ensues is inevitably worse.
See, when parents lose a child, they gravitate towards the pieces in their lives that didn’t shatter.
I am one of those pieces.
I am the piece that hasn’t shattered: their only living child.

And my parents are holding onto me so tightly, they are blind to the damage induced by their suffocating grasp. Permanent damage. The kind of damage that will make me flee from any and all means of control, any and all relationships that might try to bind me to a time or place because I cannot stay any longer here there anywhere. Anywhere at all that might result in being chained.

To induce the sort of suffocation I may not survive now.

Because I am drowning.

It’s ironic in a dark Sylvia Plath way. I have always feared that drowning would be a terrible way to go. I never thought I would experience what it was like to drown on land.

But I am here. I am here in this moment. And in this moment I cannot breath. There is oxygen all around me and I still cannot breath.

You guys are suffocating me. I am the remaining living child and you guys are suffocating me.

I.

Cannot.

B R E A T H

I call it "Small Pool Syndrome".
It occurs not all at once, but slowly over time. When one is constrained to seeing the same groups of people for too long. People that you once found ordinary, are suddenly seemingly extraordinary.

The problem arises when you can't see past the facade. The significant other you begin to fall for isn't extraordinary. They aren't meant for you. But you've been around them for long enough that you've forgotten what the outside world holds. You've forgotten that you know better. That you can do better.

It's a hard facade to crack really. Because before you know it, you've fallen for the idea of a person. Who they could be instead of who they are. At this point, you've hurdled the red line and surpassed the danger zone. Almost too far gone. Because falling for an idea is worse than falling for a person. The ending is never ideal.

The trick to overcoming Small Pool Syndrome is to leave. You must leave the pool, explore the ocean, immerse yourself in new depths.
It is only when you've left the shallow end, that you will discover what greatness awaits. One cannot overcome heartbreak from expectation until they are immersed in reality. Reality can only be found outside of the small pool. You must swim out past the tidal zone.

And when you've finally dragged yourself out, you'll stand looking into the pool instead of swimming in it. And you'll feel the "Ah-hah" moment overcome you as you realize the person you once looked at with shinning eyes was always staring back with dull ones. They aren't the one for you, no matter how sweet their words had tasted in your mouth. In life you'll find some things aren't meant to be swallowed. Especially poison.

And there will be some who may not understand. There is no rhythm or rhyme to this prose. For the majority it is but words. But for a select few, for those afflicted, these may be the words necessary to crack the facade. To pull them out of the pool. To prevent the drowning.

Don't let your heart break from expectations. Leave whats not good for you and find what you deserve.

You deserve better so:

Do. Better.

Get better.

You cannot look back if you are in the same place. You must move forward in order to reflect. And until you move forward, you cannot realize that putting one foot in front of the other was the best **** thing you could have done for yourself.

We kissed.
Well I kissed you and then we took off. We kissed twice that night. Long kisses in the middle of a parking lot. Long kisses and lip bites. Chicago.

I kissed you in an effort to tie up loose ends. I kissed you so that I'd put the wondering to rest. I was a scientist you see. I had to analyze what your lips felt like, research the taste of your mouth.

I wanted to breath you. I didn't know if that was even possible but I was just conducting an experiment. It wasn't supposed to last. It wasn't supposed to be replicated. It was just an experiment.

I was kissing you to leave you.

Intending for our first kiss to be our kiss goodbye.

Then I flew home the next day and we didn't speak for three weeks. I didn't know that my research would ruin me. That I'd think about your lips obsessively for days. That I'd hate myself for the constant oscillations of you through my thoughts.

I wasn't prepared.

Then we talked. I found out you were too drunk to even remember the kiss. I was upset but I laughed instead. I pretended to be disgusted when I told you that you had tasted like cigarettes and alcohol. But really, I was disgusted with myself for liking everything about the kiss - including the taste of you and everything on your breath.

I've come to realize I was not a researcher that night. I was a fool. A fool who thought a first kiss with a long time crush would tie up loose ends. I ******* nothing that night. Instead I had taken the sharpest scissors I could have found and initiated the greatest unraveling of sanity my 22 year old self had ever endured.

Why did I have to kiss you? I should have walked away. Hell, I should have run away like the very ground near you was on fire. Because while I've thought about you every single day since I've left, I know I likely haven't graced your imagination. Our brains are spinning very different memories.

That's the thing about memories though. Two people can be in the exact same place, at the exact same time, and have completely different recollections of the events. For me, our kiss is a memory that I've turned over in my hands, again and again. Just when I think I'm safe, when I think I've examined every aspect, I find a jagged edge and I'm cut once again.

I cannot keep re-dressing new wounds.

For you though, our kiss is a hazy, sun faded piece of paper. A second thought. IF that.

A paper so insignificant, it's recall isn't worth the effort. Who cares what the faded ink once read.

I should have never become a researcher.

People keep asking me how I’m doing.
If I’m getting better or if I’ve taken the time to process what’s happened.
If I’ve sought professional help for the metal percussions induced by my career-ending injury.

In all honesty though, professional help is futile. It can’t save me now.
I’m walking through hell and sitting in a ring of fire discussing the temperature of the searing flames would be idiotic.

Why would I allow the flames to dance along my already seared skin longer than necessary?
I know they’re hot.
I know I’m in hell.

I know the pain I feel every day is real and crippling.

Talking about this pain wouldn’t end it. It wouldn’t diminish the heat. It wouldn’t help.

I need to keep walking.
I just need to keep walking.

My crippled body can’t run anymore, but I’ve got to keep walking.

Others continue to rush by. Frantic because they’ve never felt the flames.
They aren’t familiar with the burn. The idea of being in hell is novel.

They are novices.  

But life hasn’t been kind to me.
These flames are familiar with every curve of my body and they dance around with trained feet.


I’ve been in hell for years.


People continue suggesting I find the light at the end of the tunnel, but that’s near impossible here.
I’m too blinded by the brightness of a vehement flame.
Sizzling with an angry vigor for the lack of gratitude I bestowed on my past life.

It mocks the speed at which I used to be able to run. It laps sardonically at the feet that used to run cheer-inducing speeds without thanks from their owner.

But crowds don’t cheer my name anymore.
I now stand on the sidelines and watch my team play.

I burn alive for the game I used to breath and as I watch each and every game, the deep breaths of oxygen only continue alighting the fire.

There’s no way out it seems, but I will try to keep walking.


Because talking is futile.



Note:
Spinal diseases are crippling mentally and physically. Watching the body you've sculpted for years turn to mush because you can't workout is dilapidating .
The despair and helplessness are unfamiliar feelings, feelings that can't be overcome. Disease is disease and sometimes it can't be stopped. Sometimes, it just becomes a burden to bear.


And sometimes people aren't strong enough.

It's different when careers end after four years of college. An expected end, an anticipated end. But when things you love are taken from you abruptly, before your finished. The pain is exponentially worse.

Exponentially. Worse.

I feel sorry that some people think

They
Weren't
Born
Whole.

So they go out searching,
Waiting,
Abating,
For somebody to complete their soul.

At a young age I was blessed to be broken
Got to put the pieces back together myself.
No man, no prince, no shining bright knight.
Just me and my sutures
Disinfecting alcohol on the shelf.

I don't need a healer
So no human need bother
I fixed what was broken
Saved you your wine-and-dine dollar

Spend it on a damsel
Who's been tricked into thinking she's distressed
Because I'm having none of that **** here
I'm the latest model of me and it's simply the best.

See medically speaking,
Scars won't ever leave
But they can always be replaced
By smaller ones chosen at your knives' reprieve

So I've built myself a brand new me
As whole and together
As possibly could be.

Patched up nicely with sutures
Tied ever so tight
Keloids like embedded trophies
Many a victorious fight.

And while one might go searching
Like a pollinating human bee.
I know my self worth.

I'll never depend on thee.

They say "just weather the storm"
"Just pass this test"
And "Once it's over, it will all be okay"

But it's not okay.
The storm has passed and it's not okay.
At all.

Because the storm destroyed me. And the pieces it took, the brother that's now gone.
I cannot seem to move on.

They say just weather the storm.
But they're so very wrong.

The aftermath is unbearably worse.

I used to think it was better knowing it all
But you're gone now and I've uncovered all your secrets.
All the darkest that led you to fall.

And now I know that when too much is learned, when too much has been found,
The old days will be yearned, but they'll be too buried beneath the ground.

I've found the drugs, the meds, the prescriptions galore.
I've uncovered all the things hidden behind the closet door.

The drugs were the worst and filled with sorrow.
I wish I had paid enough attention and known you were hollow

I would have traveled the earth and put sunshine in jars
I would have found climbed the sky and stolen stardust from the stars

I would have bottled it up and hand delivered it fast
If I had known you were so wounded and you weren't going to last.

But I was too caught up in myself and you always burned so bright.
How could I have known that August 17th would be your last night?

I keep looking back wondering what I could have changed
But you were the happiest person I knew...

I would have never thought of dark seas and waves deranged.

I would have never thought of monsters and sorrow and silent cries
I would have never imagined all the secrete drug dealings and the lies.

I would have never imagined the oxy, the xanax, the vicodin pills
I'd always seen you as the adventurous boy, the one seeking thrills

I just didn't know that a battle had been struck and a war had been waged.
That the insides of your mind were dark and enraged.

I wish I had known though, so that I could have aided.
So that I could have protected my twin, prevented and persuaded.

Whatever it was, we could have gotten through it.
If I had only known, if I had only seen enough to pursue it.

But I didn't.
So I couldn't.

And there's no going back.

And now there's only one of me. My other half I lack.