the truth hurts, but lies worse.

Everything is coming full circle. Two years too long, and it's finally over. It was only a matter of time.

like a puzzle.

“He-ey!” she said, slapping her hands on her knees and sitting up. She needed to derail her current train of thought. “Remember that day in Grade 11 Chemistry when we realized that we fit together like a puzzle?” He started laughing. “Stand up, stand up, stand up,” she urged, motioning for him to get off the bed.

They were both standing now. She took him by the shoulders and spun him around, taking heed of the IV attached to his arm. With his back now facing her, she turned around too, and pressed her back into his. His butt rested perfectly in the small of her back; her head between his shoulders, flanked by his angel bones. She could feel his soft laughter reverberate through his spine into hers. She pressed into him and he laughed harder. “Like a puzzle…” she whispered, smiling.

i was looking at you there and your face looked wrong.

There will come a day when I see you on the streets of this city, and I will look right through you as if you are every other person I pass in my travels.

And I think that day is fast approaching.

fir-tree, moth-eaten, sun-burst.

It was the day before the first day of classes in the winter semester, first year, Mount Sinai Hospital, 600 University Avenue, eleventh floor, room 1121. She had walked cautiously through the sterile halls, feeling nervous as she approached his room. It was the first time she had seen him since she started University, and although they kept in touch while she was at school and she knew their dynamic would not have changed, this was an unfamiliar setting for their friendship. And it terrified her. Through her last year and a half of high school, she was aware of almost everything that was going on in Peter’s life, but no story, no description, no amount of words could have ever made his life as real to her as it was in those last few steps before she reached the door to his room.

Room 1121, eleventh floor, 600 University Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital. Hospitals were places where people came to die.

It was something she had always believed, ever since she was a little girl. No one ever came back from the hospital—not for good, anyways. And as she stood around the corner from Peter’s room, she felt like a little girl again—scared of the unknown, unwilling to move until she was sure it was safe, and stuck in the notion that this place—these walls, these halls, these rooms—was a place of no return.

i found god on the corner of bloor and devonshire

It's been about a year and a half and I guess you're probably never going to talk to me again. Instead, you'll talk to all of my best friends, my exboyfriends, the people who inadvertently chose sides. You'll treat those other girls like you used to treat me. You'll ignore every single message I try to send you, and you'll keep me blocked on MSN. You'll (unintentionally) remind me every single day that I should have run after you and told you not to go and tried to work it out with you. You'll (unintentionally?) make me question if what you said was right--Maybe I should have looked right in front of me.

You'll act like you don't miss me, but I'm really hoping you still do.

You were my best friend for five years and we talked for five hours and yelled for five minutes and threw it all away in five seconds. Those years, those hours, those minutes boiled down to mere seconds and it was over a lot faster than it should have been. And it's hard to get something back from someone when they're resistant and distant and pretending to be nonexistent.

I still read that letter you wrote me the night before you left. I hope one day I'll start reading it less than I do, and I'll finally get on from this. If you're not coming back--absolutelyundernocircumstancesnotachanceinthewholeknownworld--I'm not going to wait forever just hoping that you do.

i'm losing you and it's effortless.

It is in her bedroom, with her gone to shower, that he finds himself anxious yet curious, coaxed into her life—her collection of nail polish, her crocheted pillows. It is a cozy bedroom, all personality and memories. She is a student, and her bedroom reflects chaos and cleverness. But it is also charming, the colours warm, bright, marked by content. Kind of like her, he contemplates. He touches her things, her bed sheets, picture frame, laptop. He feels uncomfortable in this room.

On her dresser, near the window, he sees a handmade book. He listens for the shower and hesitates before opening it. It is filled with pictures, words, scraps of paper. The words are short sentences, small phrases with sharp meanings. Beside, above, below the words are pictures—pictures of her, with, most importantly, other guys. He flips through the pages, and begins to see a pattern. The pictures, from beginning to end, are of the same guy.

He stops at a page. The picture is dead centre, staring, taunting. The words are sparse and followed by a broken heart. He mouths them: Forever? For always? For now. The words “for now” are bold. He picks at the edge of the journal and broods. He recognizes the face. Before him, there was him. She had mentioned him briefly. Passed it off with a wave of her hand, kissed his cheek for comfort. “Nothing but history,” she had said, alleging its triviality. He had treated her poorly, his words always biting. He remembers the look in her eyes. Wonders: Was that nostalgia?

He turns a few more pages. The picture is off to the left, the faces smiling, the heads turned towards each other. The entry is verbose, bursting with words. Some lines are emphasized, others are scrawled quickly. The most prominent line is capitalized. It reads: I WOULD JUST DISAPPEAR IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU LIKE NAILS IN MY FEET. He recoils. She said the same thing to him the other day, running her fingers along his. Breathing the words as if they were honest, smiling as if they were true. “I’ve never said these words,” she promises, “to anyone.”

“I will never let you leave,” he had said, again and again, “But I’d rather hold your hand than nail your feet to the ground.”

His eyes start to burn. The shower is still running. He turns to the last page, sees the last picture, dominant on the page, the orange timestamp overbearing: a month ago yesterday. It seems so blinding that he pushes the book back on the dresser. His eyes focus on the words above the picture: He loves me … We should be okay. He chews the inside of his cheek, and remembers last month. They had been together for three months by that point. They had sat under the stars together the night before this picture was taken. They had carefully exposed their hearts, shared, smiled, laughed their way closer together. Then, at exactly 11:11, they made wishes. And though he swore never to say what it was, the smile she had was knowing. He ensconced himself into her side, kissed at her shoulders, pale and freckly, held her tighter and tighter, and tried to become one. Later, as the moon reflected in glass buildings, he looked at her and said: “I love you.”



The shower is off. He closes the book and sits on the edge of her bed. He looks across the room at himself in the mirror, sees a boy behind dark hair, alone, deceived, a fool, a victim. He hears the door of the bathroom swing open. She walks in, towel around her body. She pulls her hair back and tightens it. She smiles and looks at him. He looks away.

you should have said no.

how do you describe the feeling when you're watching someone you know slowly slip further and further into the horizon, under a giant, flashing neon sign that says, "LOST CAUSE"? how do you describe the feeling of knowing that your friend is unreachable? how do you describe the numbness that occurs when you look in someone's eyes, and you realize that there is nothing left inside of them?

have you ever known anyone who was just so unbearably sad that you actually considered that their suicide attempt might have been justified? is it possible that there are people who are just too sad to live in this world? is it possible that maybe some people are just meant to die young and save themselves?


i'm trying to come to terms with a good friend of mine who recently swallowed an undetermined amount of morphine in an attempt to end it all. i'm trying to understand where they're coming from--i'm making up reasons and creating stories and trying to make everything make sense. i'm trying to grasp the situation entirely, and i'm trying not to be too sad. i don't want to bury my friend--not even in the slightest--but sometimes i feel like this earth is too small for them, anyways.

if i could sit down with them, and they could justify why they feel like they just don't belong among us anymore, i think i could accept it. i really do.