Keep the Faith

Everything

It was said that this was supposed to help, a long time ago just after you left and we were all still so sick and in such a state of shock, so terrified about what to tell the world and how we were never going to go back out into it as the same people again. I was really, really sick. I’m always sick.

They told me and I threw up all over the floor, only no-one got mad, because there were far more important things to worry about now. And you never got mad at me, so maybe we were almost trying to compensate for your not being here, or something, by acting out your role for you. Even subconsciously done it felt horrible and wrong, like we were trying to take your place; we felt like fucking usurpers, so we all did as we were told and retreated to chairs or beds or toilets to spill our guts a little tidier than I did, with our tails between our legs, heads down, our hearts in tatters. And it would be that way for weeks, and weeks, and weeks to come.

Well, shit, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. That happens a lot too. But I have to get everything down, what's been happening these past few months (it feels like longer), and what happened before.

You will know everything, they said, you knew him best.

We call it that now, Everything, there's been a silent kind of agreement, and it's so appropriate because you were, and are, our everything. Only ours. I thought I’d try, anyway, that’s all I can really do. Try to get all this shit sorted out in my head and not lose myself. Trying to keep hold of one thought nowadays is like looking through a box with all different kinds of string in it, trying to follow one single thread because that’s the colour you need and nothing else will do but it’s so easy to lose your way and then you have to go back to the end and start again. It’s like a treasure map. It’s like trying to find your way in a forest with no flashlight. But I can try.

I can try not to lose myself in the blame.

I think that maybe...maybe it’s guilt that makes me so quick to shift the responsibility away from myself, but we all know who to blame it on. The evidence is overwhelming with the instinct. I can’t even bring myself to call them what we used to anymore. Every kid we thought we felt a connection with was a bare-faced liar, I know that now, and I regret so badly that I didn't see it and what it might cost us back then. They have no right to miss you. They have no idea what we’re going through still, no fucking idea. They think they know loss, well; they should try and understand what it feels like to be your best friend, your brother, your wife, and not be able to wake up next to your beautiful face every morning.

Oh yes, your wife, they thought it was her fault. As if it were her that made you want to die. It makes me so sick. I saw the way you both would look at each other and would feel glad that you had found the kind of love which most people never find in their whole lives. How the hell they could look at you and rightly think that she was the one making you fall will always be a mystery to me.

Don't fail, don't fall. That’s what it’s called now, Gerard Way’s Downfall. And you’d fucking love it, the documentaries, the endless rumours that are still circulating. He’s a failure, he’s a crack whore, he’s a womanizer, he’s a liar liar liar liar liar fucking liar-

A couple of weeks after it happened, I smashed up my TV.
I shattered the screen and ripped out the circuitboard and tore out the wires like brightly coloured intestines, frayed copper wires and paling rubber, refusing to listen, to become aware of what was happening even though I knew deep down inside.

I say 'happen', like it was a car accident or something like a disease, devastating, sure, but perfectly mundane. Only it didn’t just happen, right? You did it to yourself, (you stupid, quixotic bastard) but I forgive you, because it wasn’t your fault. No, it wasn't your fault.

It was them. They were so dependent on you, Please, please, please. Oh. The dependency…you were the intravenous drip, to them, the junkie’s hit. They craved you and your words and your actions and your reassurance like a heroin addict overcome by the physical need for a fix, the flash of the needle. (You were scared of needles, while I counted on them. I haven't gotten a single tattoo since). But what about you? Who was there to reassure you? You gave, they took, you gave, and they took, and took, and kept taking, until you had barely anything left in you to keep yourself standing. Vultures, they were, tearing your heart away. Trophy killers, thieves, traitors—teenagers. Just kids, sucking the life out of you bit by bit. Each cutting remark tore another small part of you away. Every finger pointed your way was that of an executioner, every glare burned into you like they stubbed out their cigarettes on your skin. And yet they chastised you for smoking. The one thing you had left that gave away that you were still somehow clinging to that rebellious little fifteen year old boy inside of you, your one vice.

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

They were so dependent on you that it was almost ironic. Ironic because you were that way once with your drink and your coke and your pills. As soon as those words slip off my tongue I can almost see the eyes widening out to the whites, jaws hanging loose on their hinges, malicious appendages of the peanut-crunching crowd that I imagine to be watching us, all the time, like in that film that you love where the guy is living in a TV show and he doesn’t realise it. They’re such taboo words. ‘Drugs’. It is one of those words which closes doors of potential or unrealized rapport without a second glance. Drugs? You must be a sinner.

But you’re not a sinner. God, no, far from it.

You were misguided, that’s all. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone who is human makes mistakes, and that’s all you are. As much as they try to argue it, that’s all you are. And if not then what are you? Are you a god in the body of a human? No, you’re no deity. Are you an angel? Maybe. Only an angel would put up with this shit without complaint. That’s right: how could you stay silent like that when we knew that all you wanted to do was unclamp your teeth from your tongue and scream your lungs raw?

Why didn't you tell us?

Perhaps it’s the wrong way to put it; not a mistake, maybe…a life lesson. You once said that everything happens for a reason. So was it just a test, do you think? That blackout period of your life? Is everything just a test?

Is this?

Whatever it was, no-one should have had to go through it, sinner or angel, human or hero, boy or man or anything in-between.

And especially not you, ‘hero’. Never you.

-

I think it started about May. The sun was starting to make its appearance as soon as your own utopia, your very own milieu, was beginning to lose light and colour.

Your actions became mechanical, perfunctory, and every time I thought you were going to break down from sheer exhaustion or heartbreak I was the one who had to wind you back up and set you off in the race. I even saw you crying once, when you were in the bus just before a show and I had to run back to get something (typical) and when I burst into the room there were tears on your round face that you couldn’t hide.

“What’s up?” I said, acting casual like seeing this didn’t tear me apart. I had a pretty good idea what was up.

“Why do they hate me?” you asked bluntly, swiping the back of your hand defiantly across your eyes, hazy with sleep and tears “after…after everything. What have I done to them that’s so terrible, huh?”

You snapped your head up to look at me suddenly while I stayed silent, giving you a shrug instead of a proper answer in attempt to turn the attention away from myself. I had a pretty good idea. They wanted you for themselves, all of you. Now that you’d started to live your own life, the way you wanted to live it, all those adoring stares had started to turn into something a lot more dangerous. Jealousy was rampant, they were rabid even. Vicious whispers and rumours flew everywhere, pointing fingers, angry, knee-jerk reactions, accusations, even pure lies. Just chaos, utter chaos.

But I didn’t want to tell you this.

I didn’t say: Because they’re selfish
I didn’t say: Because they’ve lost faith
I didn’t say: Because all they see in you is betrayal

All I said was: I don’t know.

And you just nodded to me, giving a smile at last, and I returned one. So they hadn’t robbed that of you entirely, then, I was glad of that even if it was in exchange for a lie. You knew that, and I knew that, but I couldn’t stand to see upset because of them.

So you got all dressed up in your latex mask of All Smiles, rainbows and unicorns and little fucking bluebirds instead of the reality of betrayal, lost faith, and failure. Back in the suit, back out to the world.

And we both kept this lie up for quite a while, Our Little Secret. Because I was the only one who got it, and it was heartbreaking; to watch you watch your life go by through blacked-out sunglasses, not letting anyone in, except maybe your wife, sometimes. But after a while even she stopped being able to get through to you. You were in love, but love meant nothing where you were. Because whether you knew it or not, or whether anyone else did, where you were going at that point was somewhere else entirely, somewhere much, much darker than you should ever have to go, for your art, or for anything else. You loved your art, I know you did, but fuck.

La raison tué la passion, the reason killed the passion. It was the sole thing which saved your life that stole it from you in the end; a true Victor Frankenstein, destroyed by your creation, the thing that you created out of nothing. You created beauty and truth and love out of the ashes of a subconscious horror film played on repeat, your mind like a city ravaged by fire, broken and burned to the ground. You searched through the wreckage. You searched into the deepest, darkest parts of yourself where savage things live and managed to drag up all of the good inside you that your high school peers couldn't see, and it didn't matter that you were crazy and I was crazy because everyone's a little crazy, sometimes, and to us it just made sense. You made something beautiful out of all the shit, like a sculpture out of sharp scrap metal that critics come to puzzle and fawn over and eventually decide to buy for a thousand dollars even though they don’t really get it.

People think that they know, but they don’t, and they will never know. Don’t you get it? That’s just it, no-one ever will. No-one will ever know what goes on inside the head of the artist, the writer, the painter.

Don’t you get it? You should, it happened to you.

I don’t know why I’m saying all this. You know all this. It’s your life, Gerard Way, it’s your burden, take back your pedestal, take back your responsibility.

What you don’t know is that we would rather have called everything off than let you suffer like you must have been to do something like that. Crown of thorns, wood and nails. You were their saviour and now you were becoming a martyr, for them (this should sound familiar, good little Catholic boy like you.)

I’ve been to see your parents since, they’re not the same. They could just be the only others who know how much this hurts. Lindsay is surviving. I’ve been to see her, too. She told me something, something so heartbreaking that I actually felt it through all the layers of numb static that surround my mind. If you’d stuck around, if you’d only stuck around for a few more months you would have known. Congratulations, you bastard. You would have been a father. Congratu-fucking-lations.

I cried when she told me that, and so did she. I must sound so pathetic to you. (Not that I care.) It was kind of a relief that I could still feel remorse even when I can’t feel happiness or ecstasy or pride or pain and I can’t sit still and I sometimes I can’t move at all and I can’t sing or play the guitar or make love.

Fuck you.

So I keep going to see her, because she gets it too, she understands. She lets me cry, she lets me scream and break things. I’m a masochist, what can I say? Fuck you, I don't have to explain myself to you. That must be why I keep reminding myself, I have to keep reminding myself. It’s the same reason I let my own wife buy another television set, the same reason I’ll watch you obsessively when you come on one of these ‘Whatever Happened To…’ or ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’ shows, the way you used to talk, the shape of your mouth, the sneering, simpering, cutting hyena laugh of the presenter. Puppet without strings, no attachment to you. The way you used to smile, the shape of your mouth.

Shit. I’m getting off track.

I should probably tell you some things so I can take some of this perpetual weight off my shoulders.

I had a dream once in that black time when all this was happening. (I could sleep back then, so sweetly oblivious). It’s like you were standing up on stage as usual—a real, honest-to-god coliseum, you were the Christian…they were the lions.

I could see it in your eyes, something that I never thought I would again: Fear. As I watched from behind the curtain you battled with an invisible audience, an invisible enemy. Row upon row of empty, velvet theatre seats, studded with cigarette burns, unoccupied. Then...where did the voices come from? Jeers without bodies, screams from mouths that weren't there, all incorporeal.

I knew it was a dream, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't go and help you, my feet felt like they were chained to the floor while I watched you rip yourself apart looking for the source of the yells, the jeers, the screams and accusations and the curses.

And they echoed like a gunshot in a storm drain...

Liar!

Whore!

Fake!


That sound that came from your mouth is one that I never want to hear again, you screamed and screamed for what felt like hours, in my dream, challenging, your hazel eyes bright and scared, so scared.

"What the fuck do you want? What do you fucking want from me?"

Faggot!

Failure!

Liar!


And it seemed to go on and on, forever and ever, perpetual screaming with your pale lips wide red, wet cavern like blood, "no no no no" like a stuck record, and there was blood and it streamed out of your throat and climbed the cracks in your teeth and then I woke up with tears on my face and sweat on my hands and looked over at you and you were still be asleep.

I've never had that dream again but sometimes I catch myself thinking about it. Who am I kidding? I always think about it. I always think about you. It's one of the many songs sung by my late-night-early-morning 'What If?' choir. What if we had paid more attention? What if I had refused to leave you that night when I knew something was horribly wrong? What if I had never given up on you, even for that one second it took for you to make that horrible, fatal mistake?

Sing what if, what if, what if.

I never should have given up on you, not even for a second, and neither should anyone. I'll say it again: all they wanted was you, your reassurance. But who was there to reassure you?

No-one, and I am so sorry.

I guess it's only right that I was the one who would have to find you...like that. I guess. No-one should ever have to see that shit but...I deserved it, I think. Yes. You were the one who knew him best. I should have paid more attention. I heard the whispers too, I knew what they were doing to you but only the half of it, and I said nothing, did nothing put up, shut up.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm fucking sorry.

I'm not going to pull all this little kid shit, 'why did you have to leave?', 'where did you go?' (and the patronising mother, 'he's in a better place, you'll see him again someday')

Are you in a better place? I fucking hope so.

You bastard.I hate youI love you

- Frank Iero