- The memories are incomplete, but here is what I remember:
I remember the unsettling wave of dread and paralyzing anguish that began building, the emptiness seeping into my skin and wrapping itself around my lungs and holding tight until I was unable to breathe. I remember how it crept slowly upon me. I remember feeling it and recognizing it, asking you to take me home as it began its final turn in consuming me. You felt so far away, and I felt myself shrinking as I too fell away. I fell apart the moment the door closed, but I gathered myself enough to step away from the despair, but still, later came the feelings of numbness and dread. I reached, asking, hoping that I might not be alone with those feelings or thoughts. I didn’t want to be a burden or be the reason you could later have something to hold over me.
I remember the hopelessness that settled, walking upstairs to take my final shower, cleaning and rinsing myself off. I had taken rope from the garage and fashioned a noose, though found no means of attachment in the house and figured that any rigging system was not worthwhile. After my shower, I went into my mother’s room and took the pills out of her cabinet, finding the ones I would hope would serve as my final sentence. I remember that sinking feeling. Where were you? If you knew where I was and how helpless I was, why weren’t you there? Why was the resolution never to be there for me in my time of need? How could someone you want to be with forever not be an immediate priority in their time of despair? Why was I not shown the same love and compassion I’d provide to any stranger? You knew that I was falling apart, and you knew the moment that door shut that I would unravel. Yet, you left. You cruel, hopeless stranger. I never knew you.
I don’t remember much after taking those pills. I don’t remember much at all. I feel like I’m still there though and that I never left that moment. I still want to die. And I don’t know if anyone really understands what living under that sentence means. I remember being really tired and everything being silent in my mind for once. I remember making jokes with the medic, but I don’t remember what they were. I don’t remember the period between waiting to be taken to my room and being taken. I remember my mom coming in and holding my hand and making the world feel okay again, and I remember begging you to come and hold me too and you not responding. I remember my mother begging you to come and hold me and you not looking at me or touching me when you got there. I remember begging you to leave and asking why you came to treat me like I was nothing. God, who are you? Who was this person that I so loved and wanted to spend my life with? That could destroy me and then do it again in the worst moments. And somehow you had selfless intent? Selfish, arrogant fool. You’re a wretched person for what you’ve done, regardless of anything else, and if there is any justice and balance in life, it will be returned unto you.
Nonetheless, I still wish I was gone.
