Roots ; s.mendes

O U R E N D I N G

Piper killed herself. Two days after her heartbreaking discovery, two days after our argument, tossing any hope us i ever had away.

I was empty.

A rib cage lay in my fragile body, protecting nothing but a wilted rose and a shrivelled stem, there was no heart left to beat, no air left to breath, nothing but the corpse of Piper's flower laying dead and alone inside of me.

I felt like crawling into my comforting fleece and my now ripped pants, desperate for any sort of safety, and crying. I felt like sitting on our now tree stump, laying a pack of cheap cigarettes beside me and imaging she was there, her brown curls on my lap as she closed her eyelids and drank her poison.

But she was not there, she was not laying in my arms but in a coffin, alone. I felt revolted at the thought of the rope burns around her neck or the image of her desperate to breathe. I wanted her to be peaceful, I wanted her to be safe and calm not struggling for air crying, not choosing to leave.

I liked to blame other people a lot. To curse at them for taking my piper, taking away what my life could have been. I wondered how god could be so cruel, how he took such a beautiful seed and crushed it in his palm instead of even trying to plant it. But if you think about it, asking why god has to take the best ones is like placing yourself in a garden with millions of flowers- you aren't going to pick the weeds are you? But instead you pick the beautiful rose. And my piper was a rose.

"I'm sorry for what I said to you," I whispered. "It wasn't true, none of it was true. You know piper, my lips ache and my heart breaks and there's this hole inside me without you. I'm trying to fill this void you've left in me with cigarettes and alcohol and your favourite music and my family but it's like everything goes in and just falls straight through me. I'm so empty without you and your tree and your wheezing laughs and your bitten nails and your blonde hair that you died brown. I miss the softness of your hair between my fingertips and my hands on your empty chest. I miss the heat from the car we burned and the breeze from the top of your sycamore tree, I miss that feeling you gave me when we looked down at the cowering world beneath us with nothing but pride and joy, most importantly Piper I miss you, and I'm sorry I let you leave this world without knowing how I felt- only knowing a lie I'd said because I was hurt- but this is my way of telling you, whether you'll ever hear this or not.

"I truly hope, Piper, that you are somewhat peaceful now and that you are calm and not in pain. I won't tell myself that you're watching over me and smiling sweetly as you listen to these calm words because I know we wouldn't have believed anybody who told us that's what the dead do. and i know that you chose to leave this world and the suffering and the pain it caused you and that you wouldn't want to be watching a world you chose to escape. I know your tree is gone but it's roots are still weaved into the ground, unbreakable and solid, stuck into the soil with strength and power.

"I think of us as roots piper, stuck into the ground, a tangled mess of wood, feeding from the soil as we hide from sight, maybe when I leave to join you, whenever that may be, our messed up roots will tangle together yet again. That we will become branches of life and death and grow into the stars and maybe I'll cradle your head again. But for now, I hope your new tree will grow as beautiful and high as your previous one and that two insane kids, in our insane neighbourhood, with insane families and lives will climb to the top of it and feel just as alive as we once did."

And I planted the small tree into the ground outside the graveyard where piper was and I stood back and admired the view, what a beautiful tree it would become and what a beautiful girl I lost. I thought of children laughing and climbing it and all the memories that would be made.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Polaroid of us shed shown me that day on the hill and I smiled, I twiddled it in my finger tips for one last moment before taking her lighter and setting it on fire, the remains of our non-existent love story turning to dust.

I took one last glimpse at that small tree and imagined its roots seeping into the ground as our tree once did and then I left.I turned on my heels and I left that messed up town that I had a bitter-sweet relationship with and I never went back.