Counting

Day 1

I've spent all these years making Dan happy, and I've failed. Now how could I possibly make myself happy. Happiness did not exist in a wold where Dan didn't. I took the news like a grown man, crying on the pavement wishing I could see your face, remembering everything you've said in the last couple hundred days. Trying to remember and realizing I couldn't. What had you said? I'd prayed for what I thought would be angels, they ended up being ambulances. After I saw you for the last time I was hit with a vision, I saw my heart beating inside your chest. I realized that then you were perfect and it felt like my teeth were ripping out of my head. Then I felt love again. My head is still pounding with the force of a thousand dying suns when all these memories come marching out of my subconscious like toys on Christmas. One stood out from the rest.

"You wouldn't want me if you knew i'd gotten this bad," Dan sobbed into his lap from his spot on the bathroom floor. "pull up my sleeves, you'll see the scars."

"Dan, I'm broken too, but I think I'm too broken. Even for you." I'd said cringing though schoolyard memories. "I've got my own scars, you've got yours. But let me tell you one thing, my scars they bleed for you."

I was suddenly aware of tears on my face even though the memory was years old.

"Dan i'm in love with some one, and I think it's you."

"Phil, I love you too."

Now here I was again four years later, still crying, still broken, still bleeding from invisible wounds. Only one thing was different, I wasn't here to fix Dan and he wasn't here to fix me. I haven't been alone in so long. Dan and Phil is all that I know.

Day 2

I still pour his coffee, still set it down by his chair. The new silence resting over the flat kills me. They say you should walk when it calls, just move on don't stop, don't fall. I wish I could've shown you just how much I loved you. How much I still love you. I couldn't though because my fucking awkward self couldn't even love correctly. Phil Lester, ruining everything for thirty one years and counting. I shouldn't be counting. What are birthdays without a love to share them with? Without a love because you couldn't save them.

Week 2

The flashbacks are happening more. They just wont stop. Fuck, one's coming again.

It's twelve o clock, my mind is sleeping. I'll ask him one more time..

"Are you still in love tonight?" I ask softly, half hoping Dan wouldn't hear me.

"Forever and always." He sounded ready to fall into a coma but had opted for sleep. I let him rest the remainder of the night with my head on his chest breathing him in. I never want this moment to end.

Why that one memory? Why that one?

Week 3

I still remember the nights you'd said you loved me, there's nothing else I want, I had it all in you. My feelings still live on for you long after you've died and now I understand this is where I belong. Even in the rain I am still thinking of you, every streetlight that I pass I hit it and the rain comes down. Even in my dreams I am still thinking of you, wash away those thoughts, wash away my blood. I can still feel your heat radiating off of this sweatshirt you took from my closet and every night I breath it in. You were my summer in the depths of the winter, you were my summer I need you. You were my summer the rest feels like nothing. I could catch the stars for you, but would it have changed anything? Promise me my bad day will end, that we'll go down as lovers, as friends. Promise me that if we both die violently that the blood dripping from our lips is a symphony.

Month 1

I never wanted this. I don't even know who I'm lying to anymore, myself or all of the others. I don't know who I'm lying next to either. A man that I had called in the middle of the night to ease this awful, numbing hum that had colored this life bleak and colourless. He shifts and coughs, causing the bed to creak and moan and the movement. 'It's imitating you last night.' I thought bitterly as I found what clothes of mine that I could. For the third time this week I did the 'walk of shame' out of a strange flat and off into the brisk London air. Maybe if I keep this up I can start to care again.

Month 2

On the street I sit, light another cigarette and take a sip of anything, anything that makes it right. I'm trying to hide from the fight just inside my skull where my thoughts destroy each other in a terrible imitation of a war. On the phone I will call every boy, one and all, just to give in to any feeling. As this one grabs my black hair I am faking that the feeling he gives me is real. When he pulls at my skin I am lying. I'll finish what I started with 'I love you'. Shaking hands, runny nose all of this just for one night of sensation.

Month 3

Yes, I am aware that I am breaking. Yes, I am aware that I can't do anything. When you see me falling backwards down the wall that says I'm still alive, don't be cautious when I'm cautiously approaching on the other side. Everybody's got their reasons that's the reason we're all gonna die.

Month 4

I stare at the remnants of my old life reflected in a picture frame and think of something almost poetic. All the marks on my arms symbolize all of the ones who were smart and left me alone. I am not a poet mind you but depression and booze can do that to people.

Month 6

If seeing is believing then believe that I have lost my eyes.

Month 10

You're waisting your time if you're reading this. It is a story filled with hate and regret and I can't tell you who is right or wrong but I can say I'll never forget my time with him.

I stopped writing. Nothing I could write would do Dan justice.

Year 1

I begin to climb the stairs to the roof of our- of my apartment building, but first I stare out at the dusty remains of my old life. I still haven't gotten rid of his things. How could I? They are just as much a part of me as he was. Today marks the one year of Dans' suicide. I guess I should feel accomplished, but I don't. I just feel dirty knowing how Dan would react if he had seen me with all of those other men. If he had seen me self medicating with booze, cigarettes and sex just to make life bearable... it makes me sick. I can't live like this anymore. No more abusing drugs and alcohol. If I am to continue to live that's what I would have to do to escape from myself. Dan wouldn't want that. It would be romantic had we both dies together, but three hundred sixty five days really isn't that long, though I have changed quite a lot. I wonder if he met me now, would he still love me?

Forever and always

Those three words echoed in my head. I'll see you soon, then it truly will be forever and always. I look around once more this time stopping to pick up the unwashed sweatshirt he took from my closet. The climb to the stairs was almost calming in it's monotony. Almost. I gaze out over London, th city I fell in love with, the city I fell in love in, the city I will die in. Enough of the cigarettes, enough of the booze, enough of the late night calls. I am finally going to be happy. I hold the sweatshirt close and fly fifty feet down the side of where I once was happy.