Death is easy for the dead. Hard for the living. Because you can die in different ways. There is the total end all, where you’re just gone, and then there is the kind where emotionally, you just drop off of the face of the planet. Where you go so numb you aren't aware of anything. It's kind of nice, in the sense that while you don't feel happiness or love, you don't feel pain either. There is no anger, or sadness, or hatred. Just a clouded vision of the world through dead eyes. I was used to living this way for a long time. It's the way I was raised in some ways. Sure, I had a father who was great with his words. Told me he loved me, gave me great hugs. But he was always gone.

My mother was the same but even worse. Her tongue was as silver as Dorothy's original slippers in the wizard of oz. Loving words were spoken to keep me on her side, but also to manipulate me when the time called for it to hurt my stepmother and father. She had a talent for it really, and it wasn't until I was much older that I realized to the extent that she was using me. I was born to be a pawn on a chessboard. Not too important to the queen, unless in the right position to go for the kill. And,once I realized that, things changed. Nowadays, my dear beautiful mother can no longer use me. But the damage had already been done.

I had already gone numb. My friendships formed were fragile because of this. Easily broken,easily forgotten, because in my eyes there was no love for someone like me. No, I still remained nothing more than a pawn, and I didn't mind if people used me, so long as they didn't think they were better than me because of it because I was always aware, and I could become the queen of the match quite quickly if I felt the need. That's just the way life was. Then things changed. The first time I fell in love cracked my armor. The second time broke it. Neither failed relationship  is my true topic, because while they were important, they didn't change who I was as a person.
No, that was more recent. I made a friend. And then another, and another. Soon I was surrounded by a different kind of group of people I had never known before. They didn't want to use me. They simply, enjoyed my company and cared about me. Now as you can imagine for a person raised as I was, this was hard to believe at first, but after months of constant arguing, they convinced me. And something  deep inside changed. The world was full of vibrant colors, and I believed that even someone  like me, a shadow, deserved love. But it also made me see the pain in those I had come to care for.

All around me there was pain and heartbreak I had been oblivious to and it hurt so bad to be helpless to make them feel better because I simply didn't know HOW. I didn't know what to say or when and I was often frustrated with myself because I simply didn't have the words to say to help.

Ala. R. A. Ell. M. Yol. Z. Jun. These are the names that have scarred my mind and remind me daily of my failures. Ala, who broke free of her abusive boyfriend. R whose anxiety won the fight to many times to count. A,Ell,M,and Z were all the same problem. I was to messed up, too dark. I ruined them simply by. Being me. And Jun,whose suffering was let known in his poetry. I didn't realize how broken he was until it was to late and the walls were painted red. And yol. She was sweet. Rebellious, but fun to be around. I found Yol crying in the hallway. She had been muttering, and her eyes had this look. So dark and lost.

So I'd approached Yol, asked what's wrong. I thought that this time. This time I could help. This one girl I could save. But then Yol opened her mouth and the sorrows that spilled from her lips were things I could barely fathom and I felt my heart breaking because no one should have to feel so awful about themselves,and when I opened my mouth nothing came out because of the shock and the raw overbearing fear that I was going to lose Yol too. And I realized that this? This was pain.

This was the real world and it's so messed up and unbalanced and I couldn't handle that. I wanted to be numb again. To be a pawn because at least then I knew what to do,how to act,who to be. A shadow. Dead.  But here when I was so human. So alive and so vulnerable, I was lost. And now, every time I am in pain I see their faces. The faces of the people I cared about that I couldn't help, that I couldn't save. That kind of thing, the kind of guilt that brings someone can kill, ya know? Because this? The faces, the blazing eyes, the addictions of those around me, the DEFEAT.

My god, there is nothing as evil, as dark or cruel as that. And people will tell you, you can't let it drag you down, because you can't control the way the world works, because bad things happen to good people, but deep down that fact is already embedded into my very soul. Yet I still hold on to that guilt because I owe it to these people that I couldn't save to hold this pain out for everyone to see, so the whole damn world can know that I'm  no god. I am not a god. So everyone can see that this? This is pain. And yes, while there are indeed kids starving, and someone's grandmother just died of cancer, that doesn't mean you can belittle anyone else's problems. I realized that when I came to life. I realized that life isn't a game to wander around in. I realized that death? Death is easy. Life is hard.