From Things I never Told You From the moment I met you, I wanted to take care of you, which is odd for me because I do not deal well with sympathy. I do not deal well with suicidal, self-involved people, but for some reason when we spoke for the first time and you told me about Gaby's and your breakup, I wanted to wrap my arms around you in a comfort gesture. With you, I have experienced compassion, true anger, a bitterness that turns my insides with stinging saltiness. I have learned that the feeling you get after sobbing uncontrollably, even after all of your tears are dried, is one of absolute exhaustion that lasts for days afterwards. I have learned that my trembling body is very much shocked by emotion. And when you asked me so many times if you were a hassle to me, I was quick to say no, no no, because you taught me things about myself, about my hidden motherly instincts that gave me hope for a happy future. Because of the way that I felt about your sadness, I realized that I have inside of me the capacity for sensitivity and unadulterated, unalloyed empathy. So I was completely sincere every time I told you that although it is difficult being your friend (a phrase that you yourself coined, so no offense can be rightfully taken), it is worth the struggles. That one night you called me, sobbing, after yours and Megan's breakup, I sat up until three o'clock my time with school the next morning, explaining to you that as with Gaby, you will get over Megan in time. I sat up until I had no chance for sleep, talking you down (or so I thought) from a rash decision, talking your sobs to quiet whimpers, explaining that life is a series of fucked up relationships one after another, and that the entire struggle is to eventually land on that one person, that one square, Boardwalk, Park Place, Security, Elation, Reciprocal Infatuation. And I thought I had gotten through to you that night, thought that those hours of smooth talk and big words and logic and philosophy had touched something in you that I had previously not been allowed near. I thought that night that we had become something, touched on another level, neared a plane that frightened me with its intensity because I felt powerful. I felt for the first time in my life as though my opinions were truly important, as though they weighed heavily enough to save a life. That is when I began to think about psychology, when I began to think that it might be in my capacity to help people gain footing, take their fingers from the triggers, learn to cope, learn to express themselves and communicate. And then the letter I received the next day, the letter explaining to me that you walked into the ocean right after hanging up with me, right after I began to drift off into a two-hour intense slumber, probably smiling in my sleep. That you did not stop when the water licked your knees and that you simply let the undertow drag you until you ended up on the beach some distance later, seaweed coated and salty soaked, in front of some people's celebration, your blue jeans black with mucky ocean water. You did not die that night, just like you have not died the many other times you have attempted to take your life. You sputtered water from your quivering lips and stood up clumsily, stumbling towards the unsuspecting beach combers in search of help. Is that what you were searching for? Help? Is that what I could never give you, no matter how much I invested into the effort? You made it home to dictate the evening's events to me, telling me things that you did not tell your other friends, so that when I explained my exasperation as not being able to get through to you, they were shocked at the vague stories I had to tell. Everyone knew that you were dramatic. Everyone knew that you loved way too much. Everyone knew that you felt things like knives in the pit of your belly. Perhaps you felt rejection like the shedding of your skin from your body, tearing and ripping painfully, slowly, with deliberation. Perhaps you really do feel with more intensity than we do. Perhaps you really are tormented, clinically depressed, bipolar. Or maybe you are simply craving attention, wanting someone to be as wrapped up in you as you are in yourself. When I read that letter, full of misspellings and grammatical errors, full of melodrama and beautiful fragments of a tragic evening, I lost a piece of my devotion. To you. To psychology. To the human mind. To my own capabilities. And now with this, now as you tell me you are going to go hurt yourself and leave me, thinking that someday I will be notified of your bathtub filled with red, your wrists opened like a sacrifice to the Gods of death and delirium, I cannot help but try one more time to reach you. Different methods, I assume, will yield different results. Speaking to you compassionately about the value of life was futile and led me to find that you had thrown yourself into the California waters while I drooled on my pillow peacefully. And so this time I yell. This time I try to make you understand that you cannot play off of my fears like that, warning me of your pending injuries and then flitting away like some tortured butterfly, the powder gone from your wings. I yell like I have not yelled since sixth grade, only this time it is for a reason, this time I feel justified in my anger, in my obscenities, in trying to fight the passion back into you. I only want you to want me to be there. I only want you to let me feel what you have shown me I can feel. I only want you to allow me to be your friend, to allow me to try to reach out to you when I know you need it. I needed you to let me care. And you tell me to leave you alone. That it does not matter if I am around anymore. That it would be easier on you if I was not your friend, did not care at all. And I fight for this, too, ask if you are saying you do not want me anymore, and you ask more questions in return until I scream at you for being elusive, and you scream back for my intense frustration. So I disappear, I tell you if you do not want me to care, you should not solicit your grief to me. And you say fine, that you will not speak to me anymore, and then it is over, as quickly as it started (is that the cliche?), in the time it takes to burn rice. We can point fingers. We can be petty and argumentative and you can revoke your promise long enough to return my obscenities when it is much too late to be justified. You can address me unfairly and invade my personal territory, the only place I feel free to express myself completely. It is much easier this way, you must think, to place blame where there is none to be placed. It is much easier for you to cope with your own decisions and actions, with your own idiotic notions and the things that you would like to pretend you didn't say, if you make yourself believe that I am at fault. That I have never cared and that you have always been a nuisance to me. All I can do with this is shake my head sadly and feel the energy seep out of my body through my exhalations. All I can do is refute you weakly while you build up the anger I wished you'd had when we I was screaming and you were quiet, not caring, just holding the phone away from your ear while I screeched cuss words like a banshee. All I can do is let you place blame, let you pin me as the bad person, the one who never felt and the one who never will. The one who will forget easily what she never cared about in the first place. But I know better that that, deep inside. And you can delude yourself about my intentions, but I will not let you delude me. I know what I was trying for, I know it was a worthy cause. I only wish you felt the same way. I only wish it was not a pointless battle, a war against someone too stubborn to admit their wrongs in order to gain back the only person that was there for them, the only thing that mattered. I cannot cling to what you will not let me touch. I will not fight for what cannot be won. I have visions of you with bullets in your head, I have visions of you with an empty advil bottle beside your open, lifeless palm. I have visions of you with teary eyes puffed up like breakfast cereal, watching the sun rise on your coast while I go about my day, smoke billowing from the recesses of my memory. I can see you bloated and pale white, Death Himself teaching you to float in heavy waters, I can see you realizing your fallacies when it is simply too late. I only hope that my visions are fictitious, I can only hope that you will grow stronger and learn to love chocolate and shoelaces and popcorn and candles. I only hope that you will one day be able to tell people what it is that makes you happy. I can only hope that someday you will understand that I have given it everything I can, that I tried my best and that maybe I was simply not the square to land on, not Boardwalk. That your happiness had to be found elsewhere. I can only hope that you will give yourself the chance to unearth it. I loved you like a fire in my nostrils. I loved you like an earthquake between my ribs. I loved you like a god damned fault line traced the contours of my body, a landmine ready to create carnage at any cost. I loved you like an avalanche, like a tornado, like a monsoon, a tsunami. A tsunami. Volatile, unexpected, and unstoppable. Even now. Back to Things I Never Told You page