Dearest

Dearest, I feel certain that I’m going mad again.
– Virginia Woolf

Sometimes, a friend will text you in the earliest part of the morning saying they need you. And they’ll talk about how they feel alone and how they want to take all of their sleeping pills at once and you sit there, almost completely silent, because in your heart of hearts, you want to go too. And the only rope you have to save either of you is the thought that you might have to trudge through this life shy of a load-bearing friend, and chances are, your heart will collapse and both of you are fucked anyway. And it’s that self-preserving panic that’s going to do anything at all to save either of you, so you just grab a shovel and start dumping the guilt through the phone, scoop after desperate scoop, begging don’t you dare leave me, motherfucker, please don’t leave me alone and the voice on the other end of the phone won’t make even the simplest of promises to you because honest to god, everything is on the fucking table and that’s why they’re crying and that’s why you’re falling apart and fuck it all to hell, neither one of us wants to be here, not really, so it’s only the lies we’re shoveling about love and how life isn’t that bad that’s stemming the collapse of my heart, and jesus fucking christ that’s not much, but I don’t have anything else to say, just whispers. I can’t do this without you, please tell me you’re ok, don’t you dare leave me. Please. I can’t.

I won’t.

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