He didn't believe in an afterlife.

Yet someone he knew that there was ground beneath his feet, metal sitting in his fingertips, and a bullet in his brain.

It wasn't the silence that he was imagining when he pulled the trigger.

Bang.

No.

This was a wash of regret and confusion and anger.

This was watching your own body fall to the ground as you float in a sea of mystic bullshit.

It was everything and nothing that he wanted.

And it played again and again and again in front of him.

Barely a minute of time.

Hanging up the phone.

Picking up the gun.

Falling to the ground.

Hanging up the phone.

Picking up the gun.

Falling to the ground.

Hanging up the phone.

Picking up the gun.

Falling to the ground.

Again and again and again.

Taunting him with the knowledge of his final decision.

This was the outlier of his life?

This was what the fates decided he needed to look at as the last of his breaths escaped his body?

Not friendship.

Not love.

Not heartbreak.

Just death.

Hanging up the phone.

Picking up the gun.

Falling to the ground.

Talk to me in the shadows of dreams

In the soft excitement of keeping secrets

Meet me on the street corner

Kiss me in the back of the classroom

Then wink at the teacher like it never happened

Fall for me on the night of melting ice cream and skipping rocks

Fall in love with me under friday night lights and skinny dipping at the dock

Then turn around and give me a heartless tomorrow

Reminiscent of youth’s bravado

Moving on from late night drives and later night phone calls

Of passion forlorn, of memories

Moving on from making it work

From when we had tireless wings and promised forever

You scoffed

Told me we were too high school

And I let it be

My eyes a silent plea to stay

My voice yelling for you to go

I'm tired of going to funerals

I'm tired of your baseless threats

you dangle life in your fingertips

to push away

when faced with inconvenience

your comments slip out

"I'm going to kill myself"

"let me just go walk out into traffic"

"how about I throw myself off that building"

and I interject

blunt words

NO

no more funerals

no more death

please stop pretending

that your lives are so easy to play with

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I can hear the ringing from the sound of his fingernails on the metal barrel and it lets me know exactly what's being spun around in his hands. A chrome .45, pearl grip, shined to gleaming. Even over the phone, I can imagine what's happening perfectly, the threat of it hanging over our heads for years now. He's in faded jeans, a red flannel, surrounded by trees. There's a knife tucked into his belt, swung low.

There's silence on the phone, before I whisper breaking the tension that began to exist the moment I picked up his call.

"Why are you doing this?"

He scoffs. "I told you that I didn't want to see past 25. I figured with a couple good memories under my belt, I'd just accelerate the timeline a little bit. Go out on some happier times."

I'm over 50 miles away, driving home from work, and even without being near, I know that we're both at the wrong end of that stupid, no-good pistol that's being thrown back and forth between his hands.

"You don't have to do this."

"I'm going to."

I'm pleading now. "Why? What about your sisters? Your friends? What good is going to come of this? You don't need to do this. It's not too late." I can feel the tears starting to pool, desperation leaking into my voice. "You don't have to."

His reply hurts. "You can't change it now. I'm not even sure why I called you."

"Maybe because you knew I'd try and argue you out of it? Because this is a stupid decision that you shouldn't make?"

He drawls his word slowly. "Nah, I think.. I think I just trusted you enough to say goodbye."

I hear the safety click right before he hangs up the phone, in time with my pain-ridden whisper.

"Goodbye."

I fell in love with you over a patch in my tires

and endless miles of highway driving

I fell in love with the bounce of your knee in the passenger seat

with the songs that you skipped as you controlled the aux

I fell in love with the tap of your fingers on the dashboard

with the feel of your hand on my knee

I fell in love with the way that you would get out of the car at the gas station

to fill my tank as the low fuel light glowed

while I made faces at you from the window

I fell in love with you at 80 miles per hour

running over the speed limit all the way

I fell in love with you at every stop

every destination

every moment in between

every moment after

When my sister brought her new boyfriend home for Christmas, all of the attention was on them

We hashed out small talk and interrogations in the same conversation

There wasn't any room for questioning me

By Easter, they were old news, just another round in the holiday gamut

and I was left lonesome

with questions and pity and problems and people

telling me there are plenty of fish in the sea

and I try not to be superficial

with the emphasis on fish

but if we pretend that there are 7.9 billion fish in the sea

only 4.2% of them live in the same sea that I am in

331 million accessible fish

sure.

plenty of fish.

I'm a picky eater though- let's call it allergies.

Half of those fish really aren't for me.

115 million fish. plenty of fish.

But hey- turnabout is fair play. At least 7% of those fish think that I'm not for them either.

107 million fish left. plenty of fish.

but some of those fish are much too young to eat.

and some of those fish are just a bit too old.

I'd make a conservative estimate that 20% of fish are the right age.

21 million fish. plenty of fish.

but the sea is pretty big.. I'm really only going to be able to find fish in the same reef as me. maybe the neighboring reef? that's 4%.

840,000 fish. plenty of fish.

Half of those fish have already been caught. Tangled into some other fisherman's web.

320,000 fish. plenty of fish.

Half of those fish are in hiding. No one is ever going to catch them.

160,000 fish. plenty of fish.

But sometimes fishing is a competition.

and all that fighting over fish? well it gives some of the fish baggage and it scares another chunk away.

80,000 fish. plenty of fish.

and 4% of those fish are just a little too small to catch.

76,000 fish. give or take. plenty of fish.

Some fish are poisonous.

68,000 fish.

Some fish think that I'm poisonous.

60,000 fish.

and I've learned that some fish have opinions.

that don't really get along with the school of fish that I subscribe to.

30,000 fish.

and some fish. some fish really are just friends.

15,000 fish.

and some fish. well they think that I'm just a friend.

7,500 fish.

Some fish you really really think that you like. But someone ends up getting thrown back. Sometimes you know a fish a little too well. Sometimes your friend knows a fish. Sometimes the fish is already part of your family.

4,000 fish?

I'm starting to think that there might not be plenty of fish.

Right now I love you like a best friend

like movie nights and coffee

ranting about work and only seeing each other on weekends

I love you like a best friend

we don't spell it out

it's love ya's

and ily's

and luv

not

I love you.

but I think it would be easy to love you

to slip into the idea of more than friends

to being my first phone call every time

to thinking about you at night

to holding hands

to saying I love you

all the way through.

I thought about making this a phone call, but I thought that would be unfair.

This isn't the type of message to leave in a voicemail box that might never get checked.

I'm checking out. Just for a little while.

I'm going to take a year off, in the little cabin up north. There's a lake there and miles of trees and silence.

I need the time, so please don't convince me not to go. The memories will be simpler there, and I hope the writing will be unburdened.

You can just think of this as a really long extension of a practical joke. That in the future you'll look back at and laugh about.

About the year that I went so numb as to live alone in the woods for a year.

but remember what our old friend said so long ago?,

that anything is funny as long as one person laughs?

well.. I'm always laughing.

I promise to come back.

I love you.

my sister tells me that I need therapy

to work though the grief that stains my soul

but I spill my trauma to the internet

ignoring the ethics of the corporate spiral

that monetizes our hell

is this just a twisted stage of grief?

guilt playing wingman to bargaining

wondering what death touched words will drop from my fingers

I'll whisper it you

reveal the secrets that make my mother cry

She was 8 years old.

She was two weeks away from being 20.

He had just reached 21.

She didn't jump at 23, he didn't crash his car at 25.

But he had a gun at 21.

I broke speed limits so that I could watch my grandmother die and I still went to work the next day.

I am 21 years old and I'm told my grief is powerful.

Part of me dies a little inside. Part of me already was.

but damn,

I guess I always knew that hell was a competition.

you exist as a moment between milliseconds

the record scratch of time as the world around you freezes

you are a million imperceptible moments

a pane of glass right before it shatters

the desperate attempts for reproduction in the life cycle of a dragonfly

you are the gust of wind that knocks out a single leaf on an oak tree in a stranger's backyard

the gut feeling in my stomach as I choose to cross the street

you are a yellow traffic light, so close to red that some might call it orange

a still expanse of water in front of a child learning how to skip rocks

you are a timer hitting zero before it dings

you are my every in-between

my gasp of air

my uncounted seconds

my everything