we are delirious

spectacles of youth

living to love unashamedly

loving shyly

embracing and not letting go

dancing the sun awake

fucking till we have nothing left

till all we are, are each other, one another

till we all bleed the same 

and that is what the world sees

when the world sees us

cowardly spiraling into addiction

of each other

of skin on bones

of bodies together

of aching for gentle caresses

of dissatisfaction that being close isn't close enough

and we don't let go

can't, won't, don't want to

but ought to

let go

I chose you because Linus can't take it and dad will be a mess. I don't imagine you're doing much better than they are but I know you'll have questions. You've had questions since Roy, your brother, at age eleven hung himself. I can't speak for him but I'll tell you about me. I can offer words and you can take them or discard them, but these will be the last ones I've got. So, I tried to make them good.

I can see you seeing me; your pale eyes take in the scars, they process my behavior, my lack of ambition and irregular sleep schedule. I watch you watching me and I'm grateful you say nothing because it feeds this part of me that lives off of the lies I tell to protect my secrets. 

It is not that I can't see a future, because I can see clearly my path: two years at community college, two years at University, one for a masters, and five for a PhD. I see it like a timeline a linear line of progression stretched out before me and all I have to do to is walk towards it. 

But the ground is a slack line, I'm a thousand feet up, and each step must be calculated so that I don't fall. I know this is life, I understand rationally that life is not easy and others have it worse than me. 

In my mind though, everything seems somehow worse, I can't connect to that rational part of me and at night while you're asleep and the dog is lying on my bed I sit there rocking telling myself, not tonight, not again. Don't go to that drawer, don't take out that razor blade, bobby pins, lighter. Not tonight, just go a night and tomorrow will be easier. 

Tomorrow is never easier though. Tomorrow is always worse. I don't know why it is this way, but it is. Tomorrow my mind will tell me that the world will get over my death. Tomorrow the exhaustion will be heavier. Tomorrow I'll still be tired. Tomorrow I'll still be afraid of the future. Because it's coming and I'll still be on that slack line. It's not that I'm afraid I'll never get better it's that I will have to get better. To have the things I want in life, a child, a dog, a husband, to have these things I will have to talk about all the things I've spent so long not talking about. 

And I'm selfish mom. I don't want to talk about them. I didn't want those things to happen to me. I didn't want to have to lies. I didn't want my brain to forget things to protect me. I never wanted to need a locked bedroom door. But these things happened and I can't change them and I think that's the problem. The lack of control I have over myself. 

I bet this doesn't actually help you at all. I suppose these sort of notes aren't supposed to help. I'm not sure why they get written. I suppose people want those around them to know that there was nothing they could have done to prevent this or maybe we want to reassure ourselves of this. Or perhaps it's because we would have wanted a note if we had found someone dead one day. We'd have wanted closure, a last goodbye, an explanation.

I'm not sure that is what this is and I don't think I've answered any questions at all. Maybe I just wanted to apologize for what's to come for you. For the pain we're about to cause. Maybe that is what this letter holds, my cowardice; because I wanted to say sorry but I didn't want to have to say it out loud.