I once had a dog.
A beautiful golden retriever that was given to my mother from my father during the holidays of 1999.
Less than two months later,
I was born.
Five weeks premature.

You see, I've always been great at doing things early.
I first spoke at age one, but only to my mother.
Grew ******* in grade five, but wore bras so tight that they flattened my chest.
Had a college reading level by the time I reached sixth grade.
I swear,
I had my mid-life crisis at ten years old.

It was springtime.
The smell of Michigan's cool air mingled with that of melted snow on pavement and the first songbirds of the season called for the buds to bloom.
I was twelve years old.
I returned home one evening to find the dog with the golden-white fur,
She who would race me down the field when I thought I could join a travel soccer team after spectating one single practice,
She who would race my mother back and forth through the water back when my mother was happy,
The dog who was barely four months older,
who had seen through every unripe experience by my side,
The dog was gone.
And all I did was smile.

Now, I realize how twisted that must sound,
but you just don't get it.
I had learned a long time before to expect to one day return and find no one by my side.

You see, I've always been great at predicting things early.

I was five years old and it was springtime,
but the harmonies screamed from my parents' mouths at each other drowned out the songbirds' melodies to the budding trees.
And I,
in all the glory of innocent intelligence,
asked my mother to promise me that nothing would happen to our family.
Three years later came the separation,
and four years after they decided to love each other again,
came the divorce.

Promises,
no matter how concrete,
seem to have this strange habit of being broken, don't they?

Maybe it runs in the family.
Being left, that is.

When the first person I loved left me,
I thought it was for the best.
When the second person I loved left me,
I got over it.
When the third person I loved left,
I was lost before I was found.
But one year ago,
when the person who found me left,
the one person who I never thought I’d lose...
I don't think I will ever heal.

Life, it seems,
is even more cruel than a promise.
It's so loud in my mind that I don't know what voice is mine anymore,
but being forced to watch as the few people I let myself care about inch toward being as miserable as me is so much more unbearable.
It's starting to feel like springtime,
and normally that would make me happy, but the puddles that are melting from the snow drifts are my tears,
and the smell of the season changing only reminds me how easy winter makes it to be sad.
Every time I feel as though I have finally reached rock bottom,
rock bottom splits with my skin and lets me fall deeper.

I don't understand how things can just keep getting worse
How every door I open does not lead to a new beginning, but to a new end.
I'm great at math,
but how do I solve the equation when happiness equals pain but pain does not equal happiness.
I live a life where I keep myself lonely out of fear of being lonely.
I spend my days making time to play with words and playing with time to make words.
I want to choose death because I can't handle the hurt, but I choose life because the only thing worse than being hurt is doing the hurting.
I'm tearing myself apart in every way possible and you don't understand how quickly I'd end it if I could.


But Band-Aids can't fix bullet holes.
So don't be surprised when you can't wake me up one day.

You see,
I've always been great at ending things early.