Seeking Solace

And then I'm surrounded on all sides by murky, dark water, and I never expected this damn lake to be so fucking deep, and I've turned over so I can't tell which way is back to the edge and which way is up, and I can't let my last breath go so I can just inhale water and drown and my lungs are screaming at me to go up and find air again, and everywhere is so cold and I'm thinking, I'm thinking, maybe this was a bad idea, maybe I should've waited, but it's too late now, I'm going to die anyway unless some miracle happens, and I realize that I'm afraid, so afraid , afraid of the darkness that'll follow me afterwards, after I die, and the pain is just everywhere, and I'm trying to move my arms, to move my legs, to try and swim, swim somewhere where there might be air, to find the surface, just anywhere that isn't here, and I'm wishing I thought about this before I did it, but then slowly, slowly as the air runs out and I'm forced to let go, and I think, just this one thought, as I'm finally starting to relax into the stillness of the water, the stillness of death, I think;

Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

And then for a while, I really think I'm disappearing. That finally, I'm getting what I wanted. That I'll just be another rotting body on the bottom of the lake, and Frank won't exist anymore, and fake 'friends' who can't even remember my name will come and weep over some spot near a tree where they'll lay all these flowers and prayers and shit, and I'll just lie there until I'm dragged up again and put in my casket and left in the ground where no one will remember me...

And then I realize I've wasted the only chance I have left, and now I really will never become anything.

I never listened. When Gerard told me to hold on, I didn't. Who knows what I could have become? Who knows what I've wasted with one stupid mistake that I felt I needed to make? I was stupid. So, so stupid.

Gerard was right. This is something I didn't even need to try. I didn't even need to think about trying, because it was a bad idea from the beginning.

I kept waiting for it to be a bad idea, and now that it is, it's too late. It's too fucking late.

I suppose I expected the end to be peaceful. But what's peaceful about drowning? What's peaceful about feeling water crowd into your lungs, about your body's reflexes trying to push it all back out, about choking, about sucking in more water while trying to get it out, about tasting dirt and wood and fuck knows what else, and being afraid, about the redundancy of crying underwater, about trying to scream where no one will hear me, about wish I'd never existed in the first place so I wouldn't have to go through this now, about every part of my body aching, about hearing my whole body screaming 'HELP ME' and not having a voice to say it?

Oh God, I am so incredibly stupid.

This is why deserve to die.

It's warm. Which is weird, because I was surrounded by ice a few seconds ago. And now nothing hurts. There's just this numbness. And something soft, breathing...for a second at least, nothing makes sense, but at least there's no pain or fear any more...

And then slowly the burning starts on the very surface of my skin, on my arms, my legs, slowly building and crawling inwards, and I'm wondering why, I wondering what happened, who's burning me, why the burning is so cold, until everything just explodes at once and it hurts, fuck, it hurts.

And I'm here, rocking back and forth, shivering like I never have before, squeezing my eyes shut against rain that's falling even harder now, and coughing, coughing so hard I feel like I'm going to fall apart, and I can feel something, someone? beside me, and I'm wondering why, how the pain could possibly follow me into death too and then I'm trying to remember what happened, but it's so hard when the few thoughts I can muster together aren't making any sense and then-

I didn't die.

I didn't die and the pain never left and here I am, on the brink of dying anyway because of my stupid mistake.

I can't stop shaking enough to turn to see whoever it is holding me, and right now I feel so disorientated, I can't even remember my own name, so I just lie there, rocking and gasping for air,and everything is wet, and everything fucking hurts. And I'm being held. By God knows who.

And then after a while of rocking and coughing, I can't bear to hold on to the tiny ledge of consciousness any more, with all the pain I tried to run away from coming at me in full force. I'm so much weaker than Gerard thinks I am.

Gerard.

So I just slip away. Just for a while, I tell myself. Just until I can build up the strength to come to terms with what I've done. To face myself. And then the others.

And before I give up- a kind of giving up that I will force myself to came back from- I feel the soft, wet press of lips against my cheek and catch a glimpse of black hair.

And then that's gone too, and I'm left alone with myself and my monsters.