I remember how it felt and who I was right before my first heart break. I also remember the flip flopping between groups at school because it was far easier just to seem wishy washy then to let anybody else come on in. Does anybody take off their muddy shoes anymore before they trample over your heart or do they all seem to know how to two step as they shuffle on through. They don’t stay too long these days so that is promising. There just isn’t much of a reprieve before they try to weasel their way back for round two.

My goal has always been to love myself so hard that what other people say about me no longer matter. They say things that are designed to make us stronger yet we are too scared to walk away. We stay around longer than what is necessary hoping for results that will never come. Friends are like this. Think of all the times you were hanging on to something that just wasn’t there. Like forcing a square peg into a round hole some things should never be forced. Friendships are like that. If they begin to take more than bring you joy but I am sorry for saying this sister, it is time to move along.

There are certain events I obsess over that I just can’t move along from. Everybody says it’s in the past it shouldn’t matter but the events that transpired just prove to me that I was so far away from who I needed to be. I will never forget that day. The bus was winding down the hill and my stop was next. I looked at my phone because it buzzed but instead of replaying I turned on my phone to silent and I walked the rest of the way to work. The whole shift felt like a nightmare. Everything that I could do wrong I was and I just wanted to dig a hole and hide away. Then my break came and I went to message you back but you were already gone. Still here in this World but caught in limbo as your heart and mind worked together to try and decide in which direction you were going to go. It took everything inside of me not to run to your bedside but how could I even explain it? How would it ever had made sense? Come back to me. I miss your friendship. I remember now. I remember why you always came back for me and periodically checked in. You were there weren’t you? You were the voice on the other end of the phone.

My boyfriend at 13 was very violent. His jealous rage would bring me back and out of consciousness for a majority of my adolescent years. This day. This day was different. He was already upset about the beautiful silk boxers my mom had bought me. She bought my sister the matching pair. There was a great source of pride from my mom who just started working a job so she can buy us girls all the things she never had and the softness of this material to her was a sign that she was doing just that. I remember throwing rocks into the water when he came up behind me. The soft material hanging out from the top of my jeans. The vile that spewed from his mouth as he grabbed at the boxers and held me by them high above his head. I can still feel the tear of the boxers as they ripped away from my body. I crumbled to the ground in one big heap.

Later that day he allowed me to have a few girlfriends over. Just the ones that he approved of. The girls that thought I was lucky to have such a stud. The ones that excused the way he always treated me. He wanted me to find a girlfriend for one of his friends so he called you. Handing me over the phone he left with those girls for a smoke outside and you were nice to me. When he came back and saw that you made me smile he ripped the phone from the wall and started beating me. You were still on the line though weren’t you. The upstairs phone was never put back on the hook.

When I think about all the times you would just randomly messaging me telling me to come back home and it would be ok it was because you know why I started running. You know why I hated myself so much that I just didn’t want to take the time to stop and turn around. I paid that price though when I ignored you for the last time. I was so ashamed of who I allowed that abuse to dictate me to be I didn’t know how. I know now and my only true friend that I have ever had is now laying 6 feet underground.

Every tear that falls from my face now is shrouded in the memory of you. Your grace. Your forgiving nature and how you were always so kind. I hate that you had planned to come for me but had to send another in your place. I hate that in order to bring you back to life I have to start from where it all began when I first met you when I was 5. Relaying back every moment that we ever shared together I can see now in all the ways that you were exactly just like me. Maybe that is why it is so painful now because whatever you and me were supposed to be in this life will never come to be. I love myself so hard because I know that nobody ever can. Everything that I ever was and was going to be was laid to rest the day you died.