how to save a life

Oh… hey. Please forgive me. I’m just surprised, is all. That you gave a damn enough to talk to me. I guess in a way I’ve felt it every now and then. That feeling that someone’s around when you’re all alone, but not in a bad way. Just that feeling that someone’s looking out for you.

I know I’ve been prattling at this grave a lot, or… well, where the grave is in the real world. At first I guess it was a random headstone I picked, one that looked a little lonely. I thought whoever it was attached to could use a little company, like I did. Then I did a little bit of research, and, well… I would be a hypocrite to talk down on that. It’s easy to say that kind of thing is ridiculous when you’re not at rock bottom, but they really don’t get how easy it is to be sucked in by groups who tell you they love you when you’re at your absolute worst. The desperation is real, and it hurts. Things will prey on that without a second thought.

It’s nice that somebody gets it. Gets how much worse those old platitudes really sound when you’re on the brink. Really helps to be told you’re selfish when you’re sitting there with the razors against your wrists, right? That’s totally gonna make you change your mind.

The fact is… I am tired and bitter. I’m trying so hard to keep that hope alive, but the isolation is eating me alive. I guess I don’t really have to defend the Veil here, but… it’s a lot to go into, so maybe not all at once. I get it, though. What you went through. How it got to that point. Everyone deals with that pain differently. Be that taking the first arms that would reach out for you, or finding your painkillers in the bottle. Every now and then, there’s a little moment of clarity, where maybe things are okay for a minute. When somebody really shows that they care. For a second, you can maybe wait a bit before headed to the bar.

But then those clouds roll in again, and you stand at the front door, and you flash back to that moment when you got walked out on by the only one who ever really loved you. And you try to reach out and find where she went, and you realize that she never told you about those friends she was keeping in back alley bars. And all at once, you know your worst nightmare has been realized. She walked away from you and straight into the arms of everything you’re supposed to hate.

You look for guidance, but there is none. You’re nobody. No family to stay with while you’re flat broke. No parents to help you find her. No one like you who’ll give you the time of day for ‘letting’ her go. And then, when she comes back, she just expects you to be okay with what happened. Like it matters that she’s happier, when she’s just destroyed your chances of ever belonging.

And then it hits you, just how alone you’ve always been. How when you go to cry out to the moon, you never really noticed that you don’t know which of her faces you’re yelling to like they do. How you never had that guarantee of belonging like they did.

Maybe I’m talking too much again. I’ve been told I do that.

But what does make a difference is knowing that somebody will listen and actually get it. That somebody has a vested interest in trying to help, and that it comes from a place of real understanding instead of some place that’s totally alien to a sack of shit that’s dying of loneliness.

If you’ve got nowhere to be, neither do I. I’d really like it if you’d stick around for a while. The bar can wait a while.