There’s so much I should be doing right now, I shouldn’t be writing. I just took a long car ride back to school early to get working, I really didn’t want to leave home today for some reason. I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately, more than normal. I think to be honest I think about death every day, it doesn’t mean I’m depressed or I want to die, I think people who don’t think about death constantly are trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. I do my best to accept death, it gets hard sometimes. I remember growing up, death was such a mystery. There were those couple of kids in class who lost a parent too early and kids like me always looked up to them. They just seemed so brave, and I didn’t even really understand what dying meant, I could just tell from the way they talked about it that it was serious. I remember the morning before class my senior year in high school when we had to put my first dog, Otis, down. It seemed like I had known him my whole life. There were a lot of days when I felt too busy to give him any attention, to touch him, to tell him something. The vets came to our house so he wouldn’t have to go anywhere. See Otis was getting old and we could tell life was starting to get too painful for him, it’s funny how we assume death is better than living in pain, when we don’t even know what death is. My whole family sat around the living room, petting him, making him feel loved, our other dog Zoe sitting in the circle as well. We told the doctors we were ready (even though it shouldn’t have been our decision) and Otis laid down on his own on his bed. I’ll never forget how I felt when they put the needle in him. I don’t know why, but I felt like nothing was going to happen, that for some reason this little dog would outlast something no dog ever has. I can still see it in my head, while his eyes slowly closed, he didn’t fuss or fight at all, it’s almost like he knew what was going to happen. I swear I could see him fade, he looked older than he ever had, he looked wise. And then all of a sudden he was just laying there, and that was it. We let Zoe go up and smell him, we said it was so she would know he was gone, but I knew we all secretly thought she was saying goodbye. Then I thought about the people I’ve lost. I’m not that little elementary school kid anymore, I understand more. It’s true you learn from experience, it’s just hard to accept these people are now only memories and life lessons taught to me. It doesn’t matter how important that is, I want their presence. I want their laughs, their minds, their touch. I remember wishing I could have had that moment Zoe had, to say goodbye, to maybe understand why a little more. I look down at my arms and see my first tattoo, “If we live in hearts we leave behind, we will never die”. So is it my responsibility to keep you alive in spirit? You know I could never forget you, but is every second I’m not thankful to be alive a second of disrespect? I wonder where you are, what you’re doing. I wonder if you wish you could be alive again. I wonder if you miss me. I think about the way your father must have felt when he got the news. Or the pain you must have felt, sitting in your car alone, what made you put that cold steel of the gun against your head. Did you not think we loved you? Was my love not enough? And when I think about you, do you feel it? Thinking about those moments trips me out. I hate knowing every day I grow older is a day my parents and grandparents grow older. I don’t feel like I live for myself anymore, I feel like I live for them. I don’t see any happiness in success, other then them seeing I did it for them. 

lockinout:

i know your mistakes, does that bother you that i found where they stay?

can i reach you yet? i stood up so fast and i let you down.

it was the first time that i heard, i heard that sound.

it filled my head with the darkest shade of black and i found you there.

 i realized then that i was just a little sad, and i left you there.

(Source: like-knives)