NEW STORY

It’s usually not a spur of the moment decision.

Sometimes it doesn’t require any real planning.

Typically, it’s really the last thing you’d want to do.

Yet, you do it.

I felt the exhalation of breathe before the pain…before the searing pain that jolted through my wrist and shot up the entire length of my arm. Before the pain grazed nerve endings in my shoulder blades that caused me to suddenly hunch forward. All I felt was unbelievably unbearable pain.

Yet, it felt satisfying.

The thought that pain would be the last thing I would feel felt unsettling satisfying and I reveled in that thought for a few seconds before the pain shot through my arm again.

This was it. This is the moment that it all boils down to. The desperate need to feel absolutely nothing has brought me here.

Yet, I feel everything.

I feel everything so intensely.

I want it to stop.

I scratch at my wrist and watch my pink tinted fingertips turn a ruby red. I let my arms drop down to my side in shock. What had I done?

I let in an inhalation at breath as I stared down at the small puddle forming near me. I reach over to run my stained fingers over the wound and shudder at the feel of my insides being exposed for the first time.

I reached for the end of my shirt and begin to wrap it desperately around the wound but I felt a sharp pain in my other wrist. I turned my other hand over and noticed the slight tinge of red leaking from my other exit wound.

What had I done?

I reached for the phone, but was unsuccessful and watch it fall to the ground, now blemished with my desperation. I tried to scoot over to grab it, but felt it almost impossible to do. My body was becoming a detached thing, and even through the sudden hazy fogged now forming, I felt out of control. I grabbed for the phone, dialed the familiar digits and let my thumb hover over the neon green call button.

The neon green became a highlighted blur of shadowed gray and seemingly endless black. Familiar objects were slowly becoming etched in unrecognizable blackness. It was becoming even harder to breathe…unbearable. I felt my body slouch down and then slide onto the cold, hardwood floor. I felt a slight pain in the back of my head and turned my head to the left so that my warm cheek now rested on the cold floor. I still saw the blurred highlight of the neon button and my finger hovered above it weakly.

This was it.

This was what it all boiled down to.

As a sharp pain resonated in some part of my extremity, my thumb pressed down on the green button. The shadowed gray transformed into a murky darkness before I heard the operator’s distant voice.

With the last of known strength, I exhaled a weak, “Help.”

Then there was nothing but total blackness.

And it’s all I can do…

…and it’s all I can do not to fall apart right here…in front of everyone. I can feel all of their eyes on me, the whiskey browns, magnetic greys, and the oceanic hues of blue and green all focus on me waiting for me to crack or to break down. I feel the slight and burning prick of tears tease the corner of my eyes and I fight them back with deep breaths.

I do not want to be here.

I’d rather sit in the back room, closed up in your arms as the afternoon sun shines warmth through the slightly parted blinds.

I’d rather nuzzle against your neck, and inhale the sweet, musky scent of your aftershave and cologne.

I’d rather press against your chest and feel your heart beat underneath the softness of my palm.

I’d rather stare up into your shiny pecan brown eyes and listen as you tell me over and over how much you love me.

I’d rather listen to your sarcastic comments, or hear your boisterous laugh over the loudness of the television, or smell the aroma of your barbecued meat seep through the cracks of the weakened wooden door, or watch you steal another sugary sweet from the kitchen table and hide it behind your back when questioned, or…

I’d rather know that I could see you tomorrow, in the next hour, in the next few minutes, in the very next second.

I stared out at everyone before me, and caught a glimpse of pecan brown eyes, although smaller and a bit wider, stare back at me from a few feet away. I stared back at my reflection and it’s all I can do to stop myself from wishing I didn’t have to lose you.

There is this line in a song…

There’s this line in a song that replays in some small part of my brain at these odd times of the day. Whatever the time, it takes me back to that moment when I first felt that I could fall in love with you.

I took my eyes off of the page of the book I was reading to glance up at the patrons entering onto the bus as I’ve done numerous times before. The bus was more crowded than usual and I felt the slight brush of material across my shoulder as people moved past me to accommodate new passengers. I had just begun to turn the page of my book when I heard a quiet, almost nonexistent melody coming from some place above me. I chanced a glance upwards and watched as you stared out of the window humming a tune I had only heard once before in passing through a department store years before.

I watched the underline of your jaw move to hum the melody and I watched you close your eyes, entranced by the song that was no doubt playing through the headphones safely tucked inside your ear.

I would have liked to yank the cord away to get a chance to listen to the song with you, but I realized that I would much rather listen to your quiet melody instead.

The hum became a little bit heavier, louder, and I feared others would soon get to experience the melodious sound that I was slowly falling in love with. I had began to reach my hands up, to pull the buds from your ears and scream at you to stop humming, to stop sharing the gift that you had subconsciously given me…but you reached your hand out to pull on the yellow cord.

Ding.

The sound – your sound- became distant, slowly pulling away from my consciousness and it was everything I could not to hold on, to listen just a bit longer.

I hear the swish of the doors closing followed by the soft rumbling of the engine, and the penetrating clutter of breathy, high-pitched voices.

You were gone and so was the song.

Now, as I sit in the café, surrounded by more unfamiliar sounds, you come to mind.

“If you love me, let me go

Cause these words are knives

And often leave scars

The fear of falling apart
And truth be told,

I never was yours

The fear, the fear of falling of apart”

 There’s this line in a song that replays in some small part of my brain at these odd times of the day, that reminds me of the time I missed the opportunity to fall in love with you.

“Fine whatever…”

“Fine whatever…” I shrugged it off but it seemed like everyone else around me knew that it was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to run into his arms and ask him, possibly plead with him, to take back everything he had just said…in front of everyone. This was not how it was suppose to end. I had imagined that we would be sitting on the very last step on my front porch, huddled together, trying to block off the aching sting of the chilly Chicago winter wind. He would hold my hand and whisper, “I wish we could last forever.” I’d smile up at him and feel the tears push against my eyes before whispering back, “me too.” Because we know things like us being together forever don’t necessarily happen to people like us. We know that we have moments that are meant to be spent together for awhile and then we must resume our positions in life. He must go off to break more girls hearts, and I am destined to be the broken hearted one always.

I rubbed my sweaty palms on my overly washed, too small jeans and shrug again. “I didn’t like you anyway.” Though, we – all of us- questioned whether that was true.

“Yeah, sure.” And I watch as he turns his back on me, walking away as he has done many times before. Only this time, everyone else knows this is it. Everyone else knows that what we had wasn’t real…to him. That what we shared in quick moments over the past few weeks was nothing but bated time until this moment. This moment which sums of the rest of my youth.

I hear the giggling and see the tossed coins and crumbled dollar bills at my feet. I watched to see if he would pick up the money but he kept walking away. People shouldered past me, pointing and laughing with their friends. I kick a few of the copper coins away as the crowd continues on, each person going their own way now that the show was over.

I chanced a glance up to make sure no one was looking before bending down to count the money on the ground. Cupped in my shaking hand was $3.27. I was worth $3.27. Breaking my heart had earned him $3.27, but had cost me everything that I had.

I pocketed the money and turned towards my house, eyeing that last step, the corner where I imagined we’d sit before we’d kiss goodbye.

“I like you…a lot,” he had whispered. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

I smiled wide before reeling it back in. “Fine whatever…”

Yeah, whatever.

What you wish you had said…

She had always been there – maybe not so much during her undergrad – but she had always been there. The opportunity to say something -anything- had always been there.

My courage to apologize had not.

Yet, I feel more than courageous as I stand here, not even a few feet away from her house, hands in the pocket of my small, thin jacket, thinking about turning around to say…something.

I hear the thud of her wooden door being slammed and then the deep whisper of the screen door swinging shut. I hear the soft melody of keys swinging and then the twit-tat of them knocking against the cool metal of the door knob.

I stand there – hands in pocket – as I hear the hard crackle of thin baby doll shoes descend the concrete steps and the soft rustle of rubber on the decaying cemented sidewalk. I feel the chilly wind tickle the tips of my short eyelashes and trickle across the top of my lips and the curved edge of my ears. I feel the setting sun on the back of the exposed skin of my uncovered neck when I hear her car door open…

You and I would spend summers talking on the phone all morning about seemingly irrelevant topics such as neighborhood gossip, school gossip and drama within our own immediate families. Then, after your mom came home, we would sit on the porch, yours or mine, and do the same thing again until the street lights came on. Then you would scurry past the two houses that separated us and yell back the promise we would do it again tomorrow. You remember that?

Then in eighth grade, my friendship circle widened to include those neighborhood kids we gossiped about. My new friends started to make me see obvious differences between you and I. I started to become one of the people we talked about during those morning calls in the summer. You began to hate me and I unknowingly began to despise myself.

We no longer talked on the phone or sat on the porch until the street lights on.

We no longer made eye contact.

I believe losing you as a friend broke something in me that, up until this day, I have not been easily able to repair. I don’t know if I am that person who sat on the porch until the street lights came on, or if I’m the girl who makes fun of the only friend she had.

I use to blame everyone -even you- for causing me to lose you…for making me feel this guilt. Then I realized that it was not their fault at all for what I was feeling. It was not even the neighborhood kids. It was all mine.

I’m sorry.

I am so unbelievably sorry for what I did to you…to our friendship many years ago. It’s easy to say I was stupid then – what young adolescent is smart about life, but I could have thought more. I could have thought for myself more. I could have been smarter, more perceptive. Instead, I had let others think for me. While I had let them dictate my thoughts, it was my actions that had destroyed us. It did not cross my mind then that I would lose you, but I did not think I would keep you either. I was…just doing – and you had done the thing that has haunted me all these years. You had walked away from me.

It did not bother me as much then as it does now. We had gone separate ways…have become different people.

However, when I see you now, just two houses down, I often wonder what if? I know we can not live and exist off of what ifs but we can grow from the possibilities.

I will always regret losing you as a friend, but because I have, I have grown to become a woman who can say “I’m sorry.” I have grown to become what I should have been back then.

I hope we can start over. I would like that very much…

I hear the car door slam and the soft murmur of the ignition start. Just as I turn around, the wheels of her car angle and she drives off down the street – creating more distance between us.

I guess I am not as courageous today as I thought.

There is always tomorrow.

Goodbye writer’s block…

Dear Writer’s Block,

It’s not you, it’s me. Actually, it is you. You have been the center of my world for quite some time now. That is of no ones fault but my own. I am taking full responsibility for that. While I am becoming…an adult…I think it is time that you take responsibility for your own actions as well.  You have undeniably come between me and writing. Before you protest, I want you to think about it from my standpoint. I was in love with writing. I basked in his glory for extended periods of time, getting lost within the hours, the minutes, the seconds of the day. There was not a day that went by that I didn’t enjoy writing…even if for a short while. Then you introduced yourself on a quiet and cold evening. I shrugged you off as something in passing but from the first moment we met, you left a dredge of your being somewhere within the core of me. I couldn’t shake you. Days crept by where I longed for you instead of…what was his name?

You promised to show me fun, how to enjoy life. I admit, I saw bits of life that I probably had missed out on being so wrapped up in…what’s his name, again? But you, you stripped me of a love like no other. For months, I indulged in what you promised me…

For months I enjoyed your company…almost. However, in the back of mind, I longed for him. I picked up pens and pencils so many time but could not bring myself to write anything of substance…anything remotely me. I blame you and me for that. If I did not get so entangled within your poisonous, whispered promises of something…unattainable, I would not have fallen so out of love with…writing. That’s his name. I remember him now. Strong and inviting, still. You have grown weak, uninteresting, comical, and…no longer welcomed. I wish you all the best. For me, I’d like to start over with writing if he let’s me. I promise to never leave his side again. I will grow older and wiser by his side. I can only get better with writing, my first and true love.

Adios writer’s block. To hope that we may never cross paths again.