Someone once explained to me
How time is a manmade thing;
That there are no real measures of its limits
That time: past, present, future,
Time never dies but it only keeps creating
And somewhere in that time
We are still alive, living in the moments
That our present self believes we’ve lost
And wishes we could get back to.
We are still alive in those moments
As if we are living them for the first time still
Something in that makes me feel better.
That there’s still a place that exists,
and is as real as you and me now
where we are still fully alive and still unbroken
A place in time that doesn’t know what it feels like, yet
To have to live and breathe in a world without her
And it’s not all dead and gone;
It’s happening right now for the first time still.
If love could have saved you,
You would have lived forever.
On most days this truth eases my heart
In another point in time, at this very moment-
You are smiling on my porch
You are knocking on my door
You are learning how to play guitar with me
We’re blowing up the microwave in your kitchen
Because we put a fork in the cup of noodle
And then you forgot to add water
We’re at another party your parents are throwing
Singing Britney Spears on karaoke
In another point in time, you are outside
Sitting on the tailgate
And I can hear your laugh
As if it’s for the very first time, and not the last
Suddenly twelve years doesn’t mean anything.
I remember you were always surrounded
By all the people that thought you were beautiful
But no matter how many times they could have told you
Still you would have never known
I remember you being so excited
For chicken and waffles on Valentine’s Day
Only to leave me the day before
Cause sometimes life is *******
And the memories aren’t so sweet
And they are not light, but heavy as ****
Sometimes I don’t ******* feel better
Sometimes instead, it’s hollowness and nightmares
It’s coming home from Denny’s
To flashing blue and red screaming sirens
And a lifetime left with unanswered questions.
I still remember the numbing, desperate pain
On the face of a father frozen in the middle of the street
As they took your door and called it evidence
Because his little baby girl tied a rope around the back of it
After she pretended all day that “everything’s okay”
The noose around your neck
Became the knots in my stomach that could never come untied
I remember the place, and I remember the time
I remember the tears on the couch
Streaming from everyone’s eyes
Your baby brother, repeatedly saying
She’s going to make it, she’s going to make it
Trying to keep you alive
As they revived you six times throughout the night
Only to say in the morning that you weren’t still there inside
Even after you squeezed with your hands
When the pastor asked if you could hear him
They let you go that morning and everyone lied
Was that you fighting to survive?
Or were we just fighting to keep you
As you were still fighting to die?
They let you go and everyone lied
For years, everyone lied to me
I never got to say goodbye
That night of February 12th turned into 12 years
12 years suddenly becomes an eternal hell of time
Time that’s just standing still
I remember two weeks as if it was yesterday
I remember the nothingness that was left
I quickly learned what the **** depression was
When it took my best friend
It’s the way that I couldn’t bring myself to go to your funeral
It’s all the whispers about you at school
And then the way everyone just forgot and started living again
While I spent years just completely standing still
It’s the times I couldn’t feel my own feet walking
It’s how I couldn’t cry
It’s the weeks after you died when I finally felt
Everything- all at once
And suddenly I can’t breathe or move my legs
Without them buckling beneath me
It’s the way they left your room exactly the same until they moved
Because they never could face it; we never could face it
It’s the way the only person that could hear me
Was a broken mother through the comments of your myspace
When years later, I still wanted to tell you about my day
As if you could have really heard me
It’s how I tried letting go
Just to always take it back
It’s how I tried to release it by drowing myself
In anger, in substance, or self-inflicted pain
It’s how I still can’t eat some days
Without feeling like I’m going to be sick
It’s how I sometimes can’t feel
You, myself, anyone, or anything
Or that I sometimes feel it all too much
All at once it Just. Wont. Stop.
It’s mornings over a decade later
When I still didn’t know how to talk about this
And I’m barely strong enough to write
When the first time words, and pen, and paper
Are not strong enough to ease the pain.
I’m not strong enough to get out of bed
To beg for somebody to please just ******* hold me
It’s knowing what it feels like to **** myself
While still staying alive
Yet sometimes wondering what it would really feel like
To be certain I won’t have to wake up
It’s the question that can never be answered
How did you feel the seconds before it stopped?
It’s that no matter how happy I am or how good life gets,
It might never be enough to ever rid this aching from my chest
Because I still can’t save you
And on some days I can’t even save myself
And that’s not enough
It’s not enough
In a better time, If love could have saved you,
You would have lived forever.
But my mind is in a place, reminding me that I can’t save everyone
I can’t handle the idea of not trying, or just thinking, and wondering
If maybe love is not enough to save someone
It makes me feel so entirely hopeless that it’s like losing you
Over and over again, every day that I feel this way
When you ended your aching, you started mine
When you killed yourself,
Xochitl, Did you know you were killing me too?
They say that time heals all wounds
But when I think about the time, it only gets worse
When they said that time heals all wounds
Did they even know what pain like this was like?
How have I spent a longer time aching without you
Than the 8 years I actually had you
I think about where you would have been today
That’s the **** that ***** my head up most
Did you know 16 was the oldest you would ever be?
Did you already know today, that this would be your last birthday?
I have searched for you in everything,
Everyone I have met, everywhere I have went
And I could never find you
Yet when I run from you, I see you everywhere
Someone please explain to me again,
How time is a manmade thing.
Remind me that there’s better days
This reality in time has turned into a prison, one I don’t want my mind to be in
But still don’t quite know how to escape from
Maybe this too shall pass
But maybe this too shall ******* last forever
Would someone just please ******* hold me?
Somebody please
Just something-
Someone once explained to me how time is a manmade thing
And suddenly 12 years doesn’t mean anything.
I will be present tomorrow, but today,
Today, I only want to be in the moments that you are alive
It’s okay to not be okay
Somehow, I still believe love could save anyone
That love will someday save everyone
I still believe that tomorrow is a better day
Although tonight, I am sinking
I still believe with hopes as high as dreamers
Although my heart has been shattered
Although it took four months for me to find the strength and hope to finish writing this
I still believe, somehow, someday
I will never again be a prisoner of my own mind
That though I might never know
The reasons or the answers
This pain, one day, will heal
I still believe.
Somewhere in time you are still here with me;
Somewhere in time I am whole again.
It’s okay to not be okay-
I still believe I will get there,
I still believe.
