Misery

(Just so you don't get the wrong idea, this is written from a boy's perspective, even thought I am a girl.)1

Sometimes you think you have found that person to make everything worthwhile, make you feel like there is a reason you were put on this god-forsaken earth. I thought about suicide constantly-who doesn't?- but I never really realized there was more to life than fun and punk rock shows. 2

That's when I met her. She was working with everyone else, creating a mosh pit of danger...yet she was detached. She talked to no one, danced with no one. She...used everyone. The band screamed on stage, and she was in her element. She writhed, jumped, danced until the song was finally over, where she dropped her gaze to the floor and silently walked away from everyone. 3

She passed me, her arms on display. They were like battle scars- long, miserable wounds that covered her arms like a picture, painting the hate she wished upon every soul on this world. Her short skirt showed 10 or so hearts, all etched onto her legs like a message. She bled for those who never bleed, those who make others bleed. She was a push pin cushion for humanity's sins. 4

I leaned against the wall, hoping she would notice me. She looked into my eyes, and slammed her back onto the wall too. I could feel the Oxycontin I had just taken rip through my body. She shifted her weight onto the other foot and rested her gaze on my eyes again. I could tell she knew I was high...which made me uneasy, as I noticed two black X's sharpied into her frail hands. She didn't stop looking at me-she watched my every move. 5

Everything seemed so surreal as she intertwined my hand into hers, pulling me out into the cold November night. The acid...or Oxy, I can't remember what I had taken, was making me hallucinate, distorting the sidewalk as I stumbled on the highway bridge that led to my house. She kicked pebbles out of the way and hummed like a little kid. We abruptly stopped at the highest point, and she sat on the barricade that held up atop the bridge. She pulled out some flowers from the memorial that marked where a drive-by-shooting had happened a few days ago. She wound them around her hands, plucking the petals off one by one. With each one that let go, she dropped it off the bridge into the water under us. She began to speak, almost in monotone, completely devoid of emotion.6

"I don't understand the beauty in flowers. They grow, they only last for a few days, until they rot and die. They remind me of humans. We're only really alive in our child years. You get older, and something kills you. A manifestation of your own mind. Flowers don't bleed. I don't understand it. I could pull every goddamn petal of this flower....and it will never bleed. Never feel pain, never cry out for help only to be stomped on. I don't want to bleed, yet I don't want to be a flower. They are ugly. Everything is ugly. This world is a sick place, inhabited by sick humans. I want to set alight the world....kill all the humans and flowers. It would be a beautiful world. I would flood the world with water. I think water is beautiful. Seamlessly flowing, cold, emotionless. Never bound to really be something or anything. I want to be water."7

She jumped up onto the barricade, and marched along it, still dropping petals into the water. She started to worry me. "Hey, come up here. It's beautiful," she said. I shook my head. "You don't think I'm beautiful," she asked, tears welling in her eyes for some childish reason. I spoke for the first time, and cautiously said, "You are beautiful. I've wanted nothing more this whole night but to sit next to you, doing nothing but looking at you."8

"So then you don't trust me. You're afraid I'm going to push you into the water, and you will die in beauty's name. Well, let me tell you that would not be a tragedy." 9

She took the handful of flowers, and dropped them into the water. Her arms limply fell to her sides as if she was giving up. I set one foot onto the barricade, and hoisted myself up next to her. The calm winds pulled and teased my hair as the cold slapped my face with complete honesty. The second I stood atop the barricade next to her, my perspective changed. I looked down upon the city...and saw nothing but disgust and ruin. 10

She blinked at me as I gave her a quick smile and a nod. She pulled out a razor from her pocket and I handed her my wrists, almost as if I was surrendering my life to her. She carved two deep hearts as cars driving by honked their horns and people looked at us like we were a couple of animals that escaped from the zoo. Admiring us, but afraid at the same time. 11

We took hands as I felt the ludicrousness of this all push me over the edge. I waited in complete misery as the water sat below me, wanting to end this torture of a thing called life. The girl was no longer near me. I searched the air, but I was falling alone. Alone. Always alone. The water vanished as I saw a busy highway materialize as I slammed to the ground. My perfect sanctuary of water was no longer there. I would no longer be sent to perfection, no longer die in beauty's name. Cars slammed on their brakes as I lie alone, cold and lifeless.12

Police said it was a suicide. I say it was a bitter crusade to end the misery of this world. They found me with a razor in my pocket, a single concert stub for Kill Hannah, and 500 MG of Oxycontin in my body. I found myself like the rest of the human population-miserable, emotionless, and lacking the will to live. But, unlike everyone else, I had the strength to do something about it.13