I watched my best friend kick it into a gear nobody will ever know. He stepped on the gas, stiff, lead, heavy footed. He didn't care, he didn't know. He went, body loose, ready to go, comfortably, faintly, the only thing that held purpose was his foot, mashed on the gas.
"I'm ready"
I didn't understand then. I was scared, I just knew in that moment, I felt more prayer than I had in my entire life. Maybe he wanted to go back to the times when it was all in front. It's always in front, it's a story, maybe it ends, and how we look at it...life is not a comedy, it never ends with a laugh.
And that is the real tragedy.
The metal twisted, the wires sparked, tears fell, anyone who saw it will share that moment, it was real. When he tried to take it all away, he gave us more than we'll ever know.
Ninety miles an hour down memory lane, through the barriers of what we can't do, sirens told the tale of the end, we don't have the courage to do.
88 miles an hour may take you back in time, but 100 took me where I am now, I'll never forget, the jaws of life, the screams, the chaos. It was the assumed end of strife, it was madness, it was thoughtless. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.
He lived that night, they pried him from the steel, and a part of me died. A part of me wonders what it felt like to die, and live at the same time.
And life pushed me to that point, so many goddamn times, that maybe I was damned by God, or maybe I was only here because God, I damned.
But he lived. I'll never forget the talk.
Everyone wanted to hug, everyone wanted to kiss, but I heard only this,
"How fucking dare you?"
Selfish, without a hesitation, my mother called him selfish.
"This isn't about you, do you know what you just did to us?"
I knew what she meant. I knew how my heart dropped to the concrete, how much I knew I'd miss my best friend when I saw the emergency lights blinking, 50 feet down the cliff. I knew sadness, I knew the life I grew into, and how shattered it felt.
He lived, I'm glad he did, he's glad he did, but we are all still scarred. But me, some days, I just want to die.
I don't die, because I know how I felt that day, how much I'd miss him.
I do know how I couldn't understand, and still can't years later, when he put a rope around his neck, and ended it all.
Times were tough, and love was fleeting. I looked up to him, I wanted to hold his strength. But now all I hold is the tears of his mother. It's been years, and I know she cries, every goddamn day. EVERY. GOD. DAMNED. DAY.
Selfish.
She's so beautiful, she's so amazing, she was always so happy, so funny, she forced a smile.
She doesn't do that anymore.
She buried her son,she wonders what she could do, she prays to know everyday, to know what she did wrong, she believes in God some days, but know she'll never get the answer, "what did I do?"
But he wasn't thinking about her.
His heart was too broken, he couldn't think beyond the blindness of the disappointment, of the sadness, he could not escape.
Walk away, walk away from it all, walk into her arms, and cry.
I've thought about it for a decade, "Do I want to die, or do I want to know what it feels like to survive certain death?"
"Do I just miss the thrill of life?"
Sometimes I don't care. I have a father, somewhere,does he care?
I want to die, I burn life away, waiting for the day, that I become nothing, but why?
Why, in such a young age, do I want to die?
I don't live, I don't dare, I don't dare to love, and there, I lose it all.
But I'll never forget, no matter how dark the days, how I felt when he tried to take it all away. I'll certainly never forget, his mother's tears, and how haunted this beautiful woman will be for the rest of her life.
What did she do?
Why did she deserve to bury her son? Her only son. She loved him so GODDAMNED deeply.
I cry as I write, because I know she cried now, almost a decade later. In her world, he dies every. fucking. day.
Until the day she dies.
She doesn't deserve that.
I think about it, everyday for a decade. Some days all I want is to not wake.
But I know what the wake is like, when a son dies.
If one person feels the way I did that day, for that moment, for the rest of my life.
I'll go through the strife.
Because I may not change the world, and I may not fulfill my dreams,
But she worked too hard, she loved me too much,
For me to make her nightmares come true.
Live.
