The Reason You Don't See Me Talk About September 11th

So yesterday was "9/11"... fuck that day.

Seriously, I don't want to hear about it, I don't want to think about it, but that's not going to happen...

See, what people don't get, is I think about it every single day.

I obsess over what I lost that day... all the time.

The people we knew that lost people, the terror, etc.. and more.

The day those towers fell, was the day my best friend, my honest to god soul mate, and the only person in the universe who ever "got" me, and accepted me, flaws and all, changed his life.

He dropped out of college, signed up for the Army, and went gung-ho G.I Joe.

My peace loving, pot smoking, chill-tastic and amazing friend, was going to be a soldier.

He justified it by saying it was his duty, that it wouldn't be that bad, that he'd look smoking hot in that uniform...

Like I didn't already think the sun shone out of his ass. 

So I write to him every day of basic, I go see his graduation, and I settle in as Army BFF and probably future gf/wife/etc.

Things are fine, we visit, I have serious make-out sessions with him because yes, he looked amazing in that uniform, and we go through a deployment.

Then, he has to move. Not like we're not already going months without seeing each other whereas we used to be attached at the hip, but now he's leaving me.

I go on with my life, and we see each other every chance he gets... only now I'm a little older, and I'm a LOT prettier..

As I am heading off to college, his second deployment comes up... this time, it's going to get a lot worse according to him.

"I love you Kateydid, I'll write you. I'll try to call you. Will you wait for me? Seriously. Wait for me..."

"Duh, dipshit. I love you. I'll talk to you soon."

A couple months of sleeping with my damn phone, and constantly checking the mail... and all is well. I'm waiting for him, he's showing my picture off and people are talking about my tits in the fucking sandbox. Totally normal behavior for us.

"Kateydid, we're moving out. I will talk to you as soon as I can. I miss you and I love you... I got your last letter, and I'll write back as soon as we stop."

"Please for the love of jesus, don't be a hero. Just do your job, and call me in a few days. I love you dipshit, I'm still waiting."

Fast forward to three weeks... I'm calling his fucking parents, his friends, his ex girlfriend... I'm FREAKING the FUCK out.

No one has heard from him. According to his battle's wife, that's normal.

No. No the fuck it's not.

Exactly one month and a day, thirteen hours, sixteen minutes after the last time I heard his voice, his Mom calls me...

to tell me he's gone.

and with him, went my life.

My hero, my best friend, my dipshit...

Will.

I will always love you, dipshit. I will always remember the good times, the bad times, the stoned times, and the stellar times. I will forever hold you in my heart.

I miss you; I love you; Keep looking out, cause I sure need an angel like you.

Broken; A piece written long ago...

She sat on the floor of her room, surrounded by pictures of her past. A half-empty bottle of vodka sat beside an astray full of spent cigarettes. One still lit filled her lungs and the air with acrid smoke.

Tears ran down her pale cheeks from red, puffy, dull eyes that glistened in the flickering candle light.

Pain seemed to suffocate any light or life that entered the space she occupied. Another swallow of liquor, another cigarette lit, she picked up another photograph and stared. Fresh tears ripped through her. Sobs racked her tiny frame. If she could only die... She wanted the release of death the way addict fiends for the next big score... It was what she craved... Desired...

Needed.

The quality of her life could only sustain her for so long... She didn't eat anymore... Her friends told her

she had a disease...

No shit.

She tore at the picture until it resembled her once beautiful life. A now broken dream; tiny, irreparable pieces of what was. Her glowing smile, her intoxicatingly optimistic personality, her reasons for living...

They were all broken.

She was broken.

A strange word to use for a person, but her emotions left her almost a robot. She was programmed now to only perform basic functions, and gone were the days of extracting joy from life. She ate, she slept, she breathed.

Until even that had become too much... So she stopped eating. She stopped sleeping...

All that was left to her was breathing... And now that was becoming too hard...

She was barely alive...

So another swallow of vodka, and another photograph. Oh God, they look so happy... she and Him. She destroyed the picture in mirror fashion to all the others. Sobbing even harder, she tore at her arms and legs with bloody, bitten nails.

She screamed.

Her cigarette was extinguished on the pale, taunt skin of her foot. She wanted to feel the pain...

Immediately she lit another, and tossed the empty pack to the side. She groped around in the fleeting light to find another. She heard her conscience tell her to stop. No more. Get over it.

Live...

She stared at all the tiny pieces of photo... Hopelessness filled her.

What was the point of life now?

Him...

Another photo, and another glimpse at her budding insanity, brought an astray settling on the other side of the room in a pile of ashes and glass.

Broken...

Just like her.

A rusted and discarded razorblade found itself making a jagged path down a shrunken breast. Blood welled up and trickled down to a scabbed and shriveled nipple. Congealing only for a moment, it found its way to the disgusting floor between her legs.

So ashamed of her body she'd become...

She wanted to cleanse it...

Squeezing on her breast, she erupted in a cacophony of metallic laughter as blood continued to flow unimpeded to the floor. The sound was inhuman... The once creamy skin was tainted with blood.

First bright.

Then dull.

She found a crumpled up shirt of His... It needed washing weeks ago... She scrubbed at her fresh wound.

There was so much pain...

So much pain she convulsed, writhing in agony.

It was so good...

Sweet death...

So close, yet so far... She felt like God was punishing her, keeping her on some sort of sick and twisted life support...

So many pictures to destroy... it was so nice of Him to leave her to her memories...

Cleansed. She wasn't cleansed... She still had Him in her system...

All of this was His fault. He made her do this. Made her hate so strongly the life she once loved.

He broke her.

Yes...

She put her cigarette out on her breast. The sizzle of the hot ash mixing with the blood was music to her.

She smiled... and the smile, which once lit up entire rooms, now shone of dark madness.

It faded.

She slung an empty bottle at someone who wasn't there. It shattered satisfyingly against some unseen surface, and with a nod of approval, she opened another and drank deeply from it.

She shuddered.

Another cigarette lit, she groped for another photograph.

A beautiful black and white... Her life was now all black and white.

Not beautiful...

She licked her dry, cracked lips, and set the picture on fire.

She watched it burn into nothing. She wanted to be the picture...

She wailed into the night.

She pulled out a handful of dirty, disgusting hair. She felt blood well up in her scalp.

She burned it with insanity now shining bright in her dull eyes.

The ring finger on her left hand was now the enemy. She burned it.

No one was there to hear her agonizing screams as she watched the flesh blacken... bubble... seemingly melt off...

Until there was nothing but bone...

This madness had to end...

She was through playing this game...

Through.