The Smallest Bits

Growing up is hard, isn’t it?“ she said after a while. “Yeah.” “Does it get any better?” “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like it does. Or maybe things just stop mattering so much.”

1. When I walk into CVS, I know exactly where to find the band-aids. Four years of tearing yourself open and you get used to dragging yourself into your nearest drugstore with blood dripping down your sleeve while the employees pretend not to notice and smile at the wall behind you when they ring you up. 2. Swollen lips and sweaty “I love you’s” can make you feel again but god I don’t want to feel anything if it means having to sit there with my throat on fire while my ribs crack and splinter every part of my fucking body when he stops calling back. 3. I told my mother I wanted to fall in love and she told me she would start planning my funeral. 4. Words get trapped inside my chest and their edges cut into my heart. I wish I could just tell you how much I fucking miss you. I can’t stop bleeding. 5. My father always told me not to love someone with all of me because they’ll slam the door one night and forget to come home and they will take every fiber of my galactic being and leave me with nothing but the darkness in-between the stars. 6. There are plenty of ways to kill yourself, stick a gun to the back of your throat, fall asleep in the garage with the car on, jump into a river and let the rock in your chest where your heart used to be drag you to the bottom, smoke too many cigarettes, bleed yourself dry. I think the most effective way is kissing someone who’s name you will never be able to say without shaking. 7. You don’t drown in the ocean. You just become part of it. Your hair dissolves into waves, your lips turn to salt, your eyes melt into the sea. They say that drowning is peaceful but when I fell into you water rushed into my ribcage it was just a lot of choking and burning and thrashing and darkness. 8. When I told you I wanted you to fuck me I didn’t mean fuck me over. 9. Maybe you should come over. Maybe I should change the locks. I think I love you again. 10. I quit smoking because you could stop my hands from shaking just as well as a pack of cheap cigarettes but you rot my insides even worse.