Dear Jack

Chapter Nine

My scars and stitches have finally healed enough that I could cut myself again. Nothing made me crave the metal brush more than not being able to hurt myself for an extended period of time. My mind has been brutal to me in recent days. I see Zack's boyfriend come into my shop frequently, sometimes with Zack in tow, but mostly just his boyfriend. I keep looking of signs of him being hurt just so that I can convince myself that I am not the only one but I've never seen anyone happier in their lives. Its as though he is thriving being apart of Zack's life, and Zack is treating him properly – the way I should have been treated.

My mind also wandered about my pen pal, convincing me Jack has been killed in action or my accidental bloody letter that my mother had sent to him has scared him off because I haven't received a reply in a while. Jack has far more important things to deal with than a sad lonely boy in Baltimore struggling with being hung up over an ex. I imagine my depressing letter being the last thing he read before being killed, not a love letter from a girlfriend back home or even his family. I stole his thoughts.

My mother finally trusts me enough to go back to work full time without the worrying about her only son hurting himself more. Sure, she knows I never meant to take my self-harm that far, and now that it crosses my mind, I'm not sure she even knew I did it at all because Tom was the one to do it, but I know she's worried about losing me to suicide also. I'm sure she blames herself. She blames herself for leaving my pathetic Dad and moving us boys away, breaking up the family. She blames herself for losing one son and now possibly the other. I just wish I could show her the opposite, the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to die, that shit terrifies me, but fuck I want this pain to be over. I want to start new, respawn like a game as if the prior didn't happen. I don't want to be hung up over an ex. I don't want to be always looking over my shoulder, I don't want to nearly break my neck and drop my coffee at work every time the front door bell rings to make sure it's not him. I want to feel safe and feel as though I'm not being watched. I don't want to look at every person driving a shitty white sedan to make sure its not him. I don't want to double take when I see people who wear the same clothes or the tone in their voices mimic his.

I don't want to be that boy from high school whose brother died. I don't want to be that boy from high school whose brother died and now he self-harms; the one who seems as though they self-harms for attention when I try my best to hide it. I don't want to be that adult who has to hide fresh scars because its more commonly known to be a teenage condition. I don't want to be the person without friends because I make everyone uncomfortable when we talk about exes or because they don't understand my humour. But to be gay on top of it all. I've never hidden myself, but I feel as though that's my cherry on top of my cake. I don't want to be the boy from high school whose brother died and now self-harms seemingly for the attention, makes everyone uncomfortable to be around, has a sick sense of humour and is gay. I don't want that person, but I am.

I'm the boy – fuck me I'm in my 20s and still refer to myself as a boy – I'm the boy who has to go to therapy to deal with an ex. I have to go therapy to deal with all of this stupid mania I've developed in my own head. I have to go to therapy to learn to deal with this myself rather than venting it all to my unknowingly suicidal brother.

I'm a literal grain of dirt.

A literal grain of dirt that is honestly trying it's best to navigate its best life on this big sphere of earth that casually strolls through the infinity of the universe.

Some days I spend some time on the front porch just to get myself out of my depression pit. My mother had just purchased a new little outdoor setting and the seats were comfortable. Besides, I feel as though being outside in the fresh air watching the world go by was somewhat therapeutic to me. It felt nice to feel the breeze and hear the birds chirp and sing. It felt nice to imagine a life for the business man that drives past every morning. It felt nice to see the old lady across the street tend to her wonderful garden. It felt nice to see the cute army guy from a few houses up the road run past on his twice daily run.