You Broke Me.

  It was a Tuesday. I can remember it so clearly. It is impossible to forget the day you feel your heart crack in half; that splitting, piercing, breathtaking pain that holds onto you, and you feel like it will never let go. I fill my head with thoughts that take over me until I find it hard to pull air into my lungs; until sleep is just something I should do, but won’t. How could I not have seen it? How could I have let you slip away? I never took the chance to make sure you were okay, to gather you up like string and tie your thoughts to mine so I would never lose you.

   Your name is Jack. Or was Jack. You were the

most funny, carefree dumbass I have ever known. Your hair was a beautiful shade of brown I only wished I could have had, but it was yours, so I knew I never could have it and never shall. Your eyes popped out of your head like telescopes, and they always made me laugh. I know how much you hated your eyes; they were too big and a putrid shade of green. There wasn’t a day that didn’t seem like a good day to you. Rain, shine, or snow that was four feet deep and

packed on top of your car, you always had something to laugh about.

  For some reason, the day after I found out, I couldn’t stop thinking about this one time I had laughed so hard I literally pissed myself. It was something you had said. We were down at the boardwalk. I was licking my Dole ice cream that had ended up more melted onto my hand then consumed by my mouth. You were towering over me—you were tall, 6’4” or so—and doing that goofy walk that always made you look like a puppet. As we walked down the strip, you spotted an old, fat lady in an ugly purple dress ordering seven corndogs for her and her family. As we both looked at them, you said something like, “those poor kids are going to starve.” I couldn’t stop myself from bursting into a roaring fit of laughter. I was bent over holding out my ice cream for you to take it, seeing as I could hardly hold myself together let alone my ice cream. You looked at me, laughing yourself, wondering why such a measly comment sent me into such a fit. I kept slapping my knee and repeating the comment to myself, unable to fathom just how hilarious it was. Slightly embarrassed from my own actions, I ran behind a tent and continued to laugh until I soon felt the warm trickle of urine running down my right leg. Yet, I couldn’t stop laughing. When you caught up to me and saw the sight of me before you, you burst into an eruption of laughter yourself. I remember how you said, “did you piss yourself?” In between the laughs that had now turned into wheezes. You were still holding my ice cream.

  There was nothing wrong. You were happy, or at least it seemed like you were. We had been best friends since we were two years old. As far as I knew, there was nothing I didn’t know about you, and nothing you didn’t know about me. We told each other everything. I told you about the time I let Jeremy Tucker touch my boobs in eighth grade. You told me about the time you shit your pants during your very first job interview when you were 17. I told you when I was stealing pain medication from my grandmother, to feel something for once in my dull life. You helped me to get some help, you told me it wasn’t worth it. You reminded me of my family and what I would be breaking apart. You showed me what my future would look like if I continued down that path. But you never said anything. You never said anything. Why did you never say anything?

  I would do anything to have you here. Lying here in my bed, holding me, listening to my cries, and telling me that it was all a mistake; that it never happened. But I would crawl to the ends of the Earth, I would travel to the moon and back again to know what you were thinking. Who was this man I thought I knew so well? This person, this light, that entered my life at such an early age and left the same way. Who was he? What did he feel? He was invincible. Not one thing could get him down or rile him up. But now I understand something. Maybe it was all a façade. While I continued to lay all my problems on him and look to him for answers, he was drowning. This life that seemed like nothing but rainbows and butterflies for this perfect human being I knew, was anything but. You were falling from that high cliff in the sky, and I did nothing to try and catch you, no one did. You let us all believe that you were fine, that nothing could get you down. Well, what a fucking lie that turned out to be. And now, I’m mad at you, I hate you! You lied to me and left me feeling guilty! This is what it’s like to feel emotions Jack, this is what it’s like to stop pretending and giving a shit about the people you left behind! You broke me, Jack. You broke me.

  Yet, I could never stop loving you. I always believed that at some point we would have ended up together. Married, living in the suburbs, with two beautiful children. Maybe in another life we did, but not here, not now. What’s happening here and now is much worse. You’re gone. You didn’t even say goodbye. You just left.

  So, on that Tuesday, when your father showed up at my door, my heart shattered into a million pieces. The memories, the feelings, everything, thrown out with the pieces. I want to picture you as that beautiful boy I once knew. But now I’ll only see you at the end of that rope.