i have a disclaimer before i tell you anything else

all of this is 100% true, all the gory details

so to make it easy for myself

i’m going to pretend that you’re a good friend who’s been gone a while

and has missed a lot

i hope you don’t think i am being selfish by doing this

i just think it’ll be easier to write

it’ll be easier to be honest

i have always had a problem with being honest about how i feel

but why should i have to justify my writing to anyone

i don’t

but i am

anyway.

you see i thought i started off this year thinking

“hey, at least it can’t get any worse”

please keep in mind,

it can a l w a y s get worse.

i mean, there were good things,

and there were incredible things,

and there were moments that made me sure of why

i trudged through sixteen long years

(now seventeen)

there were days that screamed colour

and nights painted more richly than anything that could be hung on a wall

these were the ones that i lived for,

the twenty øne piløts concert,

traveling to spain,

winning state championships for marching band (for the band’s sixth time)

kerfuffle before christmas,

hanging out with better friends than i’ve ever deserved.

these are the ones i try to keep in mind,

because there were parts that proved,

“it can always get worse.”

i got my heart broken again,

which though it no longer comes as any sort of shock,

still hurts

just because you’ve been stuck with a dagger once

doesn’t mean it hurts any less the second time

but the real hurt

the worst hurt i have ever felt,

accompanied by the most terrifying blankness i have ever felt,

september 7th, 2016

it is technically the 8th but because of the time difference

i almost fall out of bed at 2:37 am

there are policemen in my house

my mother gets sick

my brother, my best friend, the first best friend i have ever had,

and by far my favourite,

the platonic love of my life,

four letters and my least favourite word,

d-e-a-d.

i dislike that word,

no, i hate that combination of letters,

more than i hate all the ‘moists’ and ‘ointments’ and ‘panties’

in the entire world combined

i thought maybe it’s just the way it sounds

but i feel the same way about muerto

and mort

and död

and мёpтвый

even ميت

it’s the connotation

it’s realizing that i never got to say goodbye

it’s finding a funny picture i want to show him and having to remember

it’s knowing that no matter how good of a person i am or how kind i try to be or how many people i can make laugh or how easy it is for me to talk about my feelings or how much progress i have made over the last four years

and let me tell you they have not been easy

but none of it matters

because he is never coming back

and i have to live with that every day of my life.

there is no escaping it.

there is no relief, there is no other way.

i remember in finding nemo, where dory and marlin are supposed to

swim through the trench, not over it

maybe it’s true that you can only go through, not above or around,

maybe the only way really is through.

i know that,

i swear that i do,

but when i wake up in the middle of the night shaking,

terrified that the phone will ring again,

it isn’t easy to remember that.

i wish on the stars for a sign from him,

but i think my voice gets lost somewhere between

i think of my words as tangible,

i imagine them in bold and italicized, leaving my mouth

and traveling towards the navy sky

if i could i would write a love letter to the cosmos

but i don’t know what i’d put down for an address

and how many stamps would it take to send a message up to heaven

i don’t even mind if i don’t get one back

just so that the stars know i still love them

and i don’t blame for anything

i just want to not feel the weight of loss so crushingly

i just want to see my brother again,

to know that he was real, that he existed and that it wasn’t all for nothing,

i want to know that i’ll live, that i’ll be okay someday

i just want to remember what it is like to hope,

i didn’t think that was too much to ask for.