A girl from school passed away recently. A few weeks ago, I found out about her through a common friend on Facebook who posted a get well soon message on her wall. Personally, I didn't know her, and I regret not having the chance.

I found out more about her through my friend, Patrick, who told me that they were classmates in high school. Apparently, she hung herself a few weeks back after her girlfriend left her. She was admitted in the ICU for a while, and it seemed like she was going to recover, and then it all came to an end.

Her Facebook profile is now flooded with messages from all the people whose lives she'd touched. Like I said, I didn't know her before any of this, but it seems to me like she has hundreds of friends. They all ask the same thing: how could a girl, surrounded by so many people who love her, give up so easily on life?

Frankly,I don't understand it as well. I guess I'm not the type who will love a person so much that I'd be happier to take my life than live without them. This incident makes me think, though. Out of all the hundreds of people saddened now by her passing, how many truly devoted the time to listen to her when she needed comfort?

I mean no judgment to any of her friends or family. I'm just asking a question here, cause sometimes, you can be surrounded and loved by a crowd, but you can still feel so alone. So I'm asking. Those times when she was low, even when she wasn't saying a word, did anyone ever really grabbed her hand and said, "I'm here if you need to talk"? 

I wish I could have known her. I wish I could have given her an hour of my time, if only to let her mind wander away from the poisonous thoughts lurking there. I feel like the world lost a star in her passing. She could have made more people happy. I could have made her realize that no one is worth that much that she should leave the world for another person. I could have at least done something to give her one more day.

But we are all so caught up in our own little lives sometimes that we forget one vital thing: the world does not revolve around us. Look around. Every day, at least one of your friends need you. Don't forget to give them a minute, to let them tell you what's going on in their lives. Smile at a stranger and be kind. One random act of kindness could be the last straw they're hanging on to continue pushing through life.

And if you're going through something, don't hesitate to tell someone. Someone will listen. Someone cares. Don't forget that no matter what, you matter.

I can't say excatly when everything started to change. There you were, and then my world shifted, and the things I once thought I knew were suddenly strange again to me.

I have almost forgotten how to feel like this. Like my skin is made of keg powder everytime we accidentally touch, or bump into each other. Like I light up in sparks. Like I'm about to explode.

I don't know what it was like the last time. I only know it's magical with you. When you're with me, I can think of a million things I want to say to you, but I can't think of a single way to begin.

After all, I'm scared.

After all, I could be the only one feeling this way.

I'm bound to get hurt, I know. I'm hoping my feelings will pass with time, but I'm seeing now how things could end up worse, or maybe better.

My cards are good, but I'm scared that I might not play them right.

I'm learning more and more how important it is to be able to control myself with the things I say, especially when I'm mad. I always end up feeling guilty and hating myself for being mean and for thinking out loud all the time, but now, I can proudly say that I'm starting to be more mature and responsible verbally, because words can cut people to pieces more than any physical trauma can.

I hope I can continue this and only improve it with time. It feels really good to know that I'm doung my best to be a better person.

with a sudden rush, i feel

your name scraping up against

the left side of my brain

unexpectedly, you slice

through the walls of my silent fortress

and now with your eyes on me

your lips speaking my name

so sinfully, your melody

my shell trembles

hope springs

and i let you in

through the bloodstained door

where yesterday

i bled

raw.

The sun slices the monotonous Tuesday sky. I sit beside you, a ready accomplice to making a great day out of what has been bleakly given to us. You reach for the radio dial, changing the station. You reach for my hand, changing me.

I don't know which comes quicker: your lazy smile that reaches up your eyes, or its silent, sudden way of putting me at ease at the very first sight. Whatever the answer is, there's one thing I know for sure. I tripped over a wire and fell deeper than I imagined I would. I'm slowly losing at a game I once thought I knew how to play.

You don't seem to notice how my eyes follow you around the room, or how your stare lifts the weight I carry around. You make fun of me a lot, and I take it all in stride, but deep inside, I wonder if you really see me that way. I think about it a lot because I know there are millions of better girls - pretty, smart, sweet things, and yet, you find a minute to share alone with me. That, more than anything, lights up this fire in me.

I don't know where this might lead us. I'm not banking on anything - you might like me back, you might not. That doesn't matter to me as much as it probably should. At least, I don't think it does. I've told myself a thousand times, repeatedly, how the oncoming pain is not worth it, but then our arms accidentally brush each other, and sparks begin to crackle in my skin. You have gotten through me the way very few people have, and everyone notices.

Everyone notices but you.

The truth is this: I'm scared of the way I'm starting to feel about you. I've lived through the most terrible nightmares, and I don't know if I could go through them again this time.

Because I feel like I need to be ready if I'm to ever love you. Because you and me together would be phenomenal, but it's not normal. Because everytime I see you, I only see the good, and I end up failing to convince myself that you're not right for me.

Because whenever I tell myself it's time to give you up, whenever I start losing hope, whenever I begin to believe that you don't see me, will never, ever see me the way I see you, you come around with your grip tight around my heart, reeling me further in, wondering if you ever lose one wink of sleep thinking about me.

Because it doesn't matter if I'm asleep or awake. Either way, you're all I see.

Because for the thousandth time today, I asked myself if you're worth it, and the answer, like always, is yes.

I find it scary to realize that I'm already there, willing to go through hell and back to make you happy.

I wonder

How big a sin

It would be

To admit that I

Have broken my promise

Have broken my safety net

Have broken more than my hips and my wrists

Falling

For a flightless friend.

Go.

RIGHT

I had no idea that I would ever feel this way about you. You were once a small dot on the map of my busy days. A thousand times I walked mindlessly past you, never bothering to do a second take. You were not, unsurprisingly, what I was looking for, as I was not, without a doubt, what you would have settled for. And then our paths got tangled. Our worlds grew smaller, smaller still, drawing us close together. Suddenly, I saw you, and you saw no one but me. Suddenly, what was once impossible has never felt more right.

UP

And so you chased, and so I fell. For the first time in what seemed like an endless, unforgiving forever, I had someone to push me up, stubbornly denying the existence of gravity. You were there, freezing time, unknowingly changing its fluid state. You were there, building cities of light in my tumbleweed chest, planting gardens of hope in my death-reeking faith. There’s no way you’re real, I said, as I followed you with my eyes, firmly believing that once I blinked, you’d be gone. But you chased, and I fell, and I realized, not everyone who falls, falls down.

DOWN

Being with you, it wasn’t much. You made my good days better, but you also gave me the worst ones. There were dark blue nights filled with starry skies, with sleepy whispers on the other line, with the saddest secrets spilled on my pillow in liquid. I could spend all day listening to you speak, weaving dreams after dreams of the too distant future, but I couldn’t stand one syllable of someone else’s name sitting on your velvet lips, resting in your beautiful mind. With this jealousy born of silly, baseless accusations, I drove you out and crashed us down.

LEFT

I had no idea I would ever feel this way about you. I was once the Earth, orbiting your sun, tucking myself up with your warmth. You were the single most prevalent thought in my mind, scattered loose and bundled tight at the same time. I knew you better than I knew my prayers at night. You were my verse, each day’s contented sigh. Stay with me forever, I asked, baring to you my every truth. Nothing lasts forever, you said, not even I. It took me this long to realize, but you were right, and I was left behind.

This is the first line I'll write about you.

I never thought I'd ever be here right now, putting my feelings about you on this word bank. A year ago, we met, and a year ago, you were far from being the very core of my dreams. But look at me now, and look at you. Look at how different things are between us.

There you sit, unaware of the distance between us, of the space I quietly despise. I curl my fingers when the urge to run them through your messy tousled hair hits me with the force of an oncoming train - urgent, sudden, showing no signs of stopping. And then you smile, that bright, hazy light rising its way up to your eyes, filling my stomach with butterflies, warming a seat in the stadium of my heart. This sense of ease that you so effortlessly bring to me unveils thousands of questions in my sleepless mind: Do you know? Do you even notice?

And then I find myself daydreaming. What if you do know? What if you do feel this way too? What then? Will I ever find the courage to tell you as you sit there, unknowingly making me fall in love again?

I didn't think it would feel this good to realize that I'm on the path to total recovery; to know that I'm finally shedding the old hurt that I've been wearing on my skin for the past four years; to feel grief's sharp claws slowly loosening their hold on my slumped shoulders. Finally, I'm out of my own personal Azkaban.