Letters To No One

Letter #12: Maybe Someday

Life sucks in ways you can never imagine. Right when you feel everything is falling into place it falls right back out faster than it fell in.
The moment I figured out I was gay was the turning point in my life. For a moment it got better, then everything got worse. No matter what I do it seems I can't figure out how to be happy. I thought my telling people who I am it would get better, but it didn't. I sit in conversations listening to my friends talk about boys wishing I could, too. All I've ever wanted was to fit in, and it seems like that can never happen for me. I'm destined for a life of disappointment and self-pity. What a harrowing thought, isn't it? The worst part is deep down I know it's true.
I keep a glass container of dead butterflies hidden away on a shelf in my room. Not just because their beauty overwhelms me, but because they remind me of all the mistakes I've ever made in my life. The way their perfect wings are frozen mid-stride, it makes me wonder, my own decisions froze my life mid-stride and forced it in another direction, like those butterflies, where would I be right now if I had said yes, if I had kept my mouth shut, if I stopped taking my pulls, if I tried a little harder and lived a little more.
To tell the truth I hate my life. I am a hopeless romantic and a coward, and that is a deadly combination. You know, sometimes I like to close my eyes and slide the knife up my arm and imagine the satisfaction I'd get knowing that my suffering would be over, but then I remember them. My family. And I would never wish the pain I feel to be pushed onto someone else because of me. People like me just aren't cut out for this. This life of anguish and suffering. And yes you can tell me other people have it worse, and it's true. But this is my life, and this is me, and no I'm not starving or homeless, and no I'm not dying or handicapped, but I...
I don't know anymore. All I know these days is I hate myself, and I can't figure out how to get better.
Some days I do honestly believe that death is the only cure to my pain, and maybe someday that will be the answer. But, like I said, I'm a coward, and suicide scares me. All I want is someone to hold me and to tell me everything is going to be okay, but nobody can do that except me. And right now, it doesn't look like anything will ever be okay.