Semicolons

Sitting on the ledge, watching little cars stream under our feet, I want to hear you talk. I know the adrenaline is pumping and your mind is porobably racing and the world is spinning. I want to hear it. If you verbalize it, maybe it'll help. Maybe letting all of your frustrations and anger and anxiety fall onto someone else, it'll help make you want to live. We can stay strangers since friends can be unreliable and family doesn't understand. You can go back inside and go on knowing this will never come out to another soul that you know.

I won't speak because I don't know what to say. I never know what to say. Things I know factually sound arrogant, things I know personally sound like I'm making this about me, things that I feel when you talk make it sound like I'm pitying you. I probably won't look at you because if you cry, I'll cry. If you are breaking, I'll break. If you look too deeply in my soul, I can't stay anonymous and will grow far too attached to just leave this ledge and walk away from you. I'll look at my feet and wonder what happens when we fall.

I've fallen before, and getting back up is hard. When you smack into the middle of Fourth Avenue and cars are hitting you every time you try to get up, it gets really hard to try to get up. That's why when I saw the soles of your feet and heard you crying, I invited myself into your space. I thought I had to get up on my own, and it didn't get easier until I finally took one of the many hands outstretched to me. It still wasn't easy since they didn't pull hard and I didn't put all my weight on them, but without that patience and care, I would've been flattened.

That long metaphor to say, talk to someone. I promise you whatever is going on will end eventually. You eventually get away from bad families. You eventually find someone that loves you for you. You eventually make it to the nicer part of life. I did it. So many people did it, and many of us are here for you because I guarantee you a lot of people that went through it remember that it is not easy. I still look at the scars (both actually and metaphorically) of that time and admire how far I came. It was a hard fight, and no fight is won without allies. So, make allies and know that if asked, I'll always happily be one of them.