The Kids Aren't Alright.

Time.

You stare at a locked phone, your thumb attentively running over the smooth screen. You don't say anything, in fact, you're pretty sure you've just gone mute at this point. Your shades are tossed, and you just keep staring at the phone. Closing your eyes for only a moment though it feels like thousands of years, you open them and avert your gaze to the ceiling.

It's been four months since John committed suicide.

It's been four months that you've been suffering.

People say it's not your fault, and you know they mean well. It isn't that easy, and good god you wish it would be easy to snap your fingers and make the pain go away. You stare at the ceiling, studying each wooden board and you continue to say nothing. Not that there's anybody there to listen to. Your guardian thinks you're okay but you know you're not. Of course you know you're not alright. Crying yourself to sleep as of late has become part of your routine, you know.

You feel like you're suffocating, the air around you is holding you so tight that you can't breathe. You want to reach out and move out of the stiff gravity enveloping you but you can't. You're numb, you're always numb. Granted you have felt this before prior to John's passing, but now it's extreme. You're irritable, you're lonely, you're quiet and sad and good god you're so many things at once.

Part of you wants to live because there's so much in life left for you, and that small speck of hope is keeping you on the rails. The other part of you is overwhelmed with guilt. How do you live on knowing something so preventable happened at the tip of your fingers, and all you did was separate yourself from the issue? You believed by parting, it would encourage him to seek help.

But you were wrong.

And that doesn't surprise you, you are often wrong.

You'd like to believe that for once perhaps you could do something correct but you know the likelihood of that is so slim.

You're still staring at the ceiling.

You know your friends are tired of you. You know your guardian is, too.

You can't help it.

You can't help that all these emotions are gripping your legs and pulling you deep into the ground, you can't help that. Why would anybody willingly let themselves drown?

Still focusing on the ceiling above you, you see John. You hear him laughing and you feel his arms around you. You feel the tightening in your chest and you see his smile again, and god knows at that point you can't stop crying.

There's the guilt again. Knocking at your door reminding you that you can't get rid of him. He's paid his eternal rent in full.

Bringing your knees to your chest, you hold yourself so close and pretend for some reason John is there with you. That he forgives you and he doesn't blame you, and that he is okay.

You know that won't happen.

You think about his charisma and his infectious laugh and his stupid smile and the sincere look he gave you everytime you laid beside him.

You're laying down now, and your holding a pillow as if it's the last thing of his you own.

And you're sobbing into the soft fabric.

And you like to think this is a dream. That you will wake up from this coma or sleep and he'll be blowing your phone up, telling you he loves you, and that you need to answer because he wants to hang out or see you.

But you know that isn't the case, and you know he isn't going to ever message you again, or call you.

You want to talk to his parent more than anything. You feel like all the apologies in the world wouldn't mean a thing. That is hypothetically speaking they would want to talk to you, and that you would be capable of actually speaking to them.

But you've thought this through and you know you could never look at them in the eye.

You know they blame you and that it's your fault.

You're getting tired, but your eyes are itchy and red and your cheeks are soaked and so is your pillow.

But you don't care, in fact, you just lay there. You lay there in the mess you created because it's what you deserve and part of you disagrees but the majority of you tells you to suck it up, because you did this to yourself and you didn't do enough to make him happy. You let him down. Because of that, everybody is suffering for it.

You stare back at the ceiling, your heavy eyes heeding you to sleep and give yourself a breather but you know you won't give yourself that much slack.

This is your mess, after all.

And it is nobody else who deserves to lay in the darkness and feel an irreversible pain.

You like to believe this pain will go away, and a part of you confidently says it will, but it takes time, healing takes time. You're not in much of a patient phase though.

Your eyes are heavy with the fantasy of sleep.

And you do eventually fall asleep, and the first thing you see is the ceiling staring back down at you.

You take a deep breath and pulls the covers off.

Healing takes time.