Love is...Real

Love is a peculiar thing. It can make you all warm and fuzzy like all the fairy tales tell you it's supposed to be like.

It can be the moment that people relish in where you see your one and only, and everything inside of you swells up until it feels as if it is going to burst. I wanted to be in love like this. I wanted the fairy tale ending where we ride off into the sunset, but things can never be that simple for me can they? No, they have be hard ad jagged and cold, like and ice pick, or broken glass laying abandoned in the gutters after a late night bender.

Nothing could ever be happy for me; it was almost like some unspoken rule that everyone knew about and obliged to without me knowing. And love would have made me happy, so of course that couldn't last. And then I met you.

And you couldn't be the exception to that rule could you?

You couldn't be the little bit of sunlight in my life that made me see the light at the end of the tunnel could you? You couldn't make things better for me could you? You couldn't be the one thing that I could hold onto when everything else seemed so dark that I would be sucked in, never to be seen again, could you? You couldn't grant me one simple pleasure, love. That's all I wanted out of you, and you couldn't even give that to me, could you?

But to make it even worse, to be the salt in my wounds that just sears away at my torn heart, you had to make me believe in you just long enough that when you left me alone, my entire world would shatter. You weren't content with just breaking my heart, you had to reduce me down to nothingness didn't you Gerard? you couldn't leave your little Frankie standing with a shred of his dignity, or his sanity, could you Gerard?

Why did you have to be so perfect?

Why did you have to make me believe?

Why did you have to show me love?

I remember seeing you at the bar. I was drunk. I was high. And you were so beautiful.

The blue strobe lights of the club reflected off of your skin with such an intensity that I was drawn to you like a moth to light. I stood no chance against you. You're hair was wet with sweat, glistening as it stuck to your pale forehead. I knew you were sober, I could see it in your eyes. I had seen my dead stare enough times in the mirror to recognize it, and ultimately avoid it, when I saw it on others.

But you were different. You were enjoying yourself thoroughly without any chemical assistance.

Already you were so much better than me, so much stronger than me. Why did you even bother looking my way?

I know why. It's because I was young, and I was hot, and I was too drunk to see that you were bad for me. that's how it always was. You never hid anything from me, I was just always too stupid to see what was so plainly in front of me.

You took me home that night. You laid me down on your bed, towering over me, and I wanted you right then and there. And you had me.

You had me in every dirty way imaginable. I was so coked up that I didn't care what you did to my body, I just wanted to feel close to you. My heart pounded and my eyes were heavy; I was barely conscious, but I didn't care. You made all of the bad go away. And the next morning, I woke up in your arms, with you whispering sweet nothings into my ear. It wasn't a normal post one night stand for me. But you said you were different.

You said you didn't want to hurt me.

You said you didn't want to use me.

What a load of bullshit that all turned out to be.

But it seemed true for a while. You cleaned me up and laid me back on my bed, and I remember thinking that you could finally be the man who saved me from everything; that saved me from myself.

And after that night, you called me, and things progressed. You became my best friend, then my boyfriend.

I considered you my soul mate. I loved everything about you.

And love was new to me. And you knew that. You knew about the abuse I underwent as a child. you knew that I never really felt compassion from other people. You knew that I had emotional scars deeper than I could ever bring myself to describe to you. I trusted you enough to show you everything I had locked away for all those years. I showed you what I was hiding behind the drugs, and you supported me. You said you would help me, as long as I trusted you. So I did, I trusted you with everything I had.

I let you see my scars. I let you see my pain. I let you hear in my voice how broken I was, and how scared I was to let you in. I let you see everything that haunted me in my dreams. And for some sick reason, you ignored it all. You led me down the same path of abandonment that I had grown all too familiar with. You brought all of my demons back to life.

How could you do that to someone you claimed to love? How could you so readily hurt them without the slightest signs of remorse?

I loved you!

Your smile made me want to laugh. Your eyes made me want to stare at you until I finally died. Kissing you made me not want to breath, in fear of parting my lips from yours for even a moment. Everything about you seemed to fill the gaps I had. You were my other half.

You made me feel safe Gerard; like all of the horrible things that swirled around in my head didn't matter. You made the drugs seem unimportant. You were my reality and anything else was just a mere whisper in my life. You had turned down the volume on everything else. Do you understand that? I told you that. And you told me that all you wanted in life was to keep me safe.

But you couldn't keep me safe from myself forever could you? And once you found out that I was struggling to stay clean, you started to drift away. You knew that I needed you more than anything in the world at that time and you left me alone, and so cold that I had nothing else to turn to except for the drugs. If you had stayed around, I might have pulled through. I might have been okay. But instead you rehashed every insecurity I had about myself.

I wasn't good enough.

I wasn't pretty enough.

I wasn't strong enough.

I was ugly.

I was pathetic.

I was unloved.

Within a week, you unraveled months of positive progress that you had made with me. While we were together, I felt like things were going to be okay and then you left and just crushed it all as if it were nothing. As if I were nothing.

But you couldn't just up and leave could you? you had to keep me waiting up for you; sending me a few texts a week telling me you loved me and that you were so sorry for not keeping in contact. you were busy you'd claim.

Busy with him huh?

I was falling apart, so you decided to move on without telling me first. Then you would have to balls to show up just to tell me you love me and how I'm the only one for you. But I could smell him on you Gerard. I could see the guilt on your face every second that you were around me. You didn't want me to know that you had already replaced me, right? How dare you Gerard.

Then you finally grew a pair and decided that you would stop toying with my heart like some cheap toy. You said that it wasn't a good time for you to be in a relationship. You said that if circumstances were different, that we could be together.

And which circumstances were those Gerard? The one where I wasn't on drugs? Or the ones where you weren't a lying, deceitful, bastard?

We could have been something beautiful. But instead, it was ugly and toxic, like everything else I'd been involved with in my sad life. You left me in shambles. You left me alone.

You left me, and you never looked back.

And now I'm here, cleaning up the shambles of what's left.

So, now I bid you farewell Gerard. I hope you and your whore are happy.

xo, Frankie.


I folded up my letter and placed it neatly on the coffee table, drawing a small heart on the front. Hopefully someone would find it. It would be such a waste for me to have put so much time into it, only to have it go unread.

Sighing, I picked myself off of the couch and wandered into my bedroom.

So many memories.

And I grab my gun.

I loved you so much.

I loaded the chambers one by one, before spinning it and locking it back into place.

You meant so much to me.

I cocked the gun.

I thought our love was real.

And placed it to my head.

My love was real.

I said one last prayer before pulling the trigger, reducing myself to a crumpled body strewn across the floor. Behind me was a wall, covered in blood splatter and skull fragments. And beneath me was a beige carpet, quickly staining red with what could have been.

In hindsight I can't help but ask myself if you ever really loved me? Under any regular circumstances, I would have easily no. It's impossible to love an individual and yet treat them as poorly as you did me. But our situation was different.

I know that our love was real.

I know that our love was real, every second I spent with you was real, and all of the trust that I put into you was real. You know how I know that?

Cause it our love wasn't real, then losing it wouldn't hurt this badly