Give It Back

Hello Death.

I can still remember the first time we met. It was at my aunt's funeral. I remember as I looked into her expressionless, almost purple face, I saw you. I was young. Too young to realize why you were smiling at me. I could hardly bear it so I simply stopped looking. It was awhile before we met again.

It was at my grandmothers funeral. You had not stopped to say hello when my grandfather was buried a few months earlier, but this time you paid me visit. And as I stood watching the dirt cascade down over the cement box, you placed something icy and cold in my heart. It took root, and festered there, slowly draining me.

By the time it became noticeable to those around me, it was almost too late. I was a very lost eighth grader who was sick and tired of being the good kid of the family. The one with the train wreck brothers and mental case of a sister, who had the perfect grades and the perfect test scores and the very imperfect and quite twisted soul. You were scared away by a visit from a shrink who invaded the personal space of my room and who I secretly despise to this day.

You didn't stay away long though, and a year later you were back in my sights. Someone who I thought was good used you against me to bend me to their will. They were a monster who knew losing people I cared about to you was a weakness of mine. And I went through six months of hell just to try and keep them out of your clutches. In fighting against you so fervently, I almost lost myself to you. Because you soon seemed as the only way out of the terror of the relationship I had with them.

I gained my best friend that year because she helped save me from him, and ultimately you. I'm starting to worry though that you have grasped her tightly and I'm going to have to fight for her this time around.

That icy cold something you placed inside me still hasn't left. I feel it inside me every single time I receive one of those damn text forwards delivering the sad news that we lost another student at our school. I feel it every time I look into my friends eyes and don't see the shimmer that was there when we first met. And I feel it every time I get home and can still smell the latest date on my clothes.

Because you don't just steal lives. You steal hearts.

And I want mine back so I can remember that my mother picked me to be hers and really does want me to come back and visit some day. So I can maybe, one day, love the one who makes me smile and laugh and sings to me. I want mine back because there is so much beauty in this world and I want to see it all without you hanging inside my empty chest.

That's the real reason I'm writing to you Death. I want my heart back. You can have it when you take my life. But until then, give it back.