Here's To You

Here’s to you…

For sitting on cold bathroom tiles in the middle of the night to the sound of crickets and your own sobbing as you stare at the medicine cabinet and tell yourself that a handful of pills can numb it all but you push past that moment of impulsivity as your feet stay flat on the ground so you hug your knees and weep.

For smiling in a room full of loud chatter as everyone exchanges stories told too many times and jokes laughed at before but they all still bump fists and slap their knees so you imitate their movements and they don’t question why your expression mirrors theirs but your eyes are glassy and far-away as you sit in a room full of your loved ones and imagine if they would miss you if you were away, if they’d say that they knew all along anyway.

For failing what you set out to do so now you sit on the edge of your bed with a paper in your hand that says the future you saw no longer exists and you have to try and try again but all the fight within has been drained out long ago so the rejection on the piece of paper becomes the brand on your forehead as you feel yourself shrinking in a world that is constantly growing and you wonder if maybe you have tried enough times already.

For wandering empty roads at ungodly hours with hands shoved deep into your pockets and lungs burning with tobacco and hash as you cross an unstable bridge that’s too high above the rubbly road beneath and you pause by the edge and fantasize about throwing yourself towards the ground for one last kind of flying high before the whole world descends into a darkness darker than this night, but then you walk on.

Here’s to you for coming face to face with Death himself as he tips his hat at you like a gentleman caller and stretches forth a gloved hand asking for a dance so seductively that you pause and consider letting go of all the pain that eats your insides and the voices that scream and standards that you think you’ll never meet and all the people you know you’ll never please; here’s to you for staring at his hand and believing you have nothing to lose, yet tipping your own hat in gratitude before walking away. For there were perhaps more reasons for you to want to dance, but you picked yourself off the ground and gave yourself another chance.

Here’s to you for sticking around.