It happened in a moment. As it has happened every time since. A single revelation, moment of self righteous clarity. I can't.
It was a different I can't than the others. Not I can't believe this has happened. Not I can't believe that I lost my job. Not I can't believe this is my life. Not I cant belive im all alone. Not even I can't do this anymore.
Those thoughts had filled my brain for months. During the loneliness. During the unemployment. As the bills began to over flow the mailbox that I refused to open. As the texts and calls and emails went unanswered. They came even when I tried to drown them. Even when I thought I'd cried them all out. Even when the medicine was supposed to make them go away. Those I can't were always there.
They sang like a chorus of horrid angels chanting my failures in my mind. In my sleep. Suffocating my dreams and aborting my hope.
They sang as I drove in the pitch dark. Radio silenced. They were the one sound I could hear as I parked the car. Their rhythm and cadence mirrored my steps along the sidewalk and on to the bridge.
I moved to the beat of that hypnotic self hate. The echo's of every fear, doubt, failure and mistake I'd could pull from memory. All the pain I had internalize for years gave it strength as my fingers curled around the cold hard railing. Tears streamed down my face as I closed my eyes. The sound of liquid hate swallowing me up as I opened my eyes and stared into the black.
Into the the long drop that would end my pain. Would finally silence that damned chorus of hate. My eyes burned, my muscles clenched. Every nerve raw and ready, longing for the dark bath that would wash it all away. The chorus of dark twisting and building until almost reaching an ugly and final crescendo...
"Jump asshole!!!!"
I spun on my heel to see the tail lights of some ugly and busted Chevrolet Impala head across the bridge and heard the haunting cackle of car load of jackass young men.
Rage exploded out of me as I unleashed the largest amount of ineloquent bile I could. Which at that moment amounted to a mumbled, "fuck you."
How could they!? How could they step on my moment, this grim ending, this sacrifice that would purge my pain and give me glorious freedom from this sysphisian life!!! Outrage!!
Didn't they care about my pain!? My need? How selfish. People don't think about anyone else. What completely self absorbed jerks.
I sat. On the concrete bridge and wallowed in the macabe humor that I had even failed at this. I even laughed. A sad selfish laugh.
The chorus, broken by the flash of rage and the hint of light from a tiny laugh, was gone. My mind was silent. And it came out as a whisper, almost as a prayer.
I can't be this selfish.
I can't do this to them.
I can't.
So I didn't. And that moment is there every time the chorus starts a new refrain. It is there each time I hear that whisper again.
My pain is mine. Its my chemical imbalance. Its my dark chorus to hear.
I can't give it to them.
I won't.
