I have held the suicide hotline in my hand, ready to press the number. I have curled up on train platforms, the cement ground touching my face, and I have picked my day of death twice.

It all comes down to a conversation where I lost someone I love. In my writing, I try to make the words flow. Sometimes they don't come, and I'm stuck in bed at 2am, hearing the pay phone dial tone like an erotic whisper. The one where she hung up on me, while I was in the hospital. When words fail, there's nothing but pain.

She's not dead. Not even close. She goes to Harvard, she's married and has three 'fur babies.' I'm some deadbeat who writes for s___ and giggles. Maybe someone will hear me in the internet void. She saves lives, or is studying to. She is better than me.

She is better than me. She is better than me. She is better than me.

I made a mistake. I didn't apologize. Not even over the hospital's pay phone. I didn't even cry until after she had hung up. I don't know if I'm repressed. Maybe I am. I went back to sleep and didn't wake up for three days. I texted her when I got out and she didn't respond for hours.

I'll never recover from the mistake I made. I didn't know, before she disowned me as her sister, that you can die while you're still alive. That is something I will never recover from. It's a sprained ankle that I didn't go to Urgent Care for, and now I'll limp forever. She doesn't love me in the same way, in the same amount. If I had a penny for every time I think about what a piece of s___ I am because of it, I would be able to afford the cost of fifteen million plane tickets to visit her, but they would be as useless as the pennies themselves.

I don't know how to recover from it. That's my answer. In filling out a response to this prompt, I thought I had something to say. Maybe I don't. And maybe that's the problem. I have no words. One of us will go to the other one's funeral, because one of us will die first. And there will be words uttered there. Words like, I'm sorry for your loss. But she's already chosen to lose me. And that's where I'm stuck on this prompt. Because how do you find words, or emotions, or thoughts, when you've already sealed the coffin on the relationship?

There's no real answer to death and I'm not sure there's an answer to what happens after someone decides you're a toxic piece of trash.

I went to the hospital for her. To save our relationship.

Click, goes the dial tone. I hear it in my sleep. I'll hear it after I'm dead.

It's funny how that sound can come up in casual conversation, conversations where she doesn't ask me about how I'm doing. Harvard's so great, she says, eyes glistening. I can't see them glisten, but through texting, there's a certain emoting that comes through with certain emojis. If she were an emoji, she'd be the little smiley one with a pink face. I see her as bubbly, punctuating my life with pain. Punctuating my life with little moments of regret and stupid responses to meaningful prompts.

1. i guess i began when i wrote my first word. it was likely my name, in barely a scribble on a page that had the letters in a connect-the-dot fashion.

2. writing has given me ability to connect dots. like how similar societal progression is to dna. first, it is replicated. then transcribed. then translated. then, it is destroyed. first, we had fire. which we shared and replicated for others to benefit from. then we had drawings on walls, based on stories told by the fireside. then we had intellectuals gather and people transcribed their conversations, and this has stood as the basis of government and law making. but the way it was written then isn't understood now, so we need classes to translate it into modern tongue. and soon, it will be destroyed.

3. i want to write a sci-fi.

my life was a line. a straight and narrow path, all i had to do was take one step at a time and id reach paradise. paradise was the end goal. paradise has shattered, and i see the broken pieces glittering on the sidewalk of the straight and narrow, beauty hidden in seeming darkness. I chase after hope, one step at a time. closing doors behind me, i push forward. I change. I grow, and the world is a stained glass window

I can be happy.

paper thin smiles and broken eyes

Showing you the world through the rips,

but you forget,

there is a masterpeice below.

come and watch the illusion,

the golden light that shines on me

rather than being in me.

The longer you see the light,

the darker the blue as you turn away.

And slowly the blood drips

from my cheeks, and

I turn as pale as paper,

Ripping from within.

only to turn blue again.

becoming everything I hid from being.

so can I be happy?

or will the faces finally show?

but how to be happy in unhappiness-

that seems to be the question

Living in my world of fantasy

a universe of lies

I could stay here for an eternity

as long as you're by my side

Heavy hearts beat in the same

solemn tune,

and if love is a game

I only want to play with you.

I am sitting on your couch with you next to me. You play a soft song as you slowly take a pull from the glass pipe. We lock eyes for a few seconds and just gaze deep into each other souls.

Oh the people we could be, places we could go, and things we could do together if only. If only we could put the pipe down, If only we could let our past go. If only we didn’t, if only we did. If only I loved less and you loved more, if only we weren’t so stubborn & wanted to be right.

We could start to get better, build each other back up, see in each other why we fell in love. Smile again and let laughter fill the air. So throw out your doubt, turn to me, grab my hand so we can be free.

"If deep isn't your style,

then I'll push you into the ocean

and ask you if real life

is shallow.

(Maybe it is)."

915 Posts • 631 Followers • 738 Following

I've been a member of Prose for more than 3 years. I write about anything and everything; fiction, poetry, long, short, people, monsters. I especially love writing in fantasy genres, horror, and sci-fi.

I really love the people that I've met through this website. Everyone is so supportive and I wish you all luck and success in your writing careers and life in general! Keep creating! :)