they asked if you love the school.

you couldn't really say.

they asked if you love the field you're going into.

you couldn't really answer.

they asked if you love the person you're becoming.

you couldn't stand to look at your own self in the mirror

couldn't stand the failures scrawled on your flesh,

eating away at your bones.

you couldn't stand the low, down, dirty shame,

or the crippling state of uncaring and uninspiring,

or the quiet life you were slowly, bitterly getting used to.

you couldn't stand how your memories of the school,

of learning,

had morphed

from vigorous

enthusiasm and excitement

to something

foreign.

distant at best,

hazy at minimum,

venomous at worst.

but you didn't tell them that.

you asked if they love the person you're becoming.

and their eyes were sad.

you knew that kind of sadness well.

you've been at the end of it plenty of times.

the kind of sadness that wrestled them in the inside,

and made them swallow sleeping pills to get through the nights.

the kind of sadness that they couldn't bring themselves to cry tears,

for there would be no tears enough to fill the gaping holes in their weary chests.

you were a troubling kid back then,

and you are still a daft kid now.

nineteen years didn't change you much, did it?

they didn't hug you,

nor do they really look you in the face.

you had thought it would be better if they had beaten you up

and leave you half-dead on the front porch.

because then you would be in too much pain and cowardly tears

to see the undeserving love you received from them.

but your father didn't raise his fists,

your mother didn't yell at you.

they simply smiled.

and smiled,

and smiled.

their consoling words were gentle.

it was the kind of gentle that split you open at night

and bleed dry on the little bed you shared with your sister.

it was the kind of gentle that was your heaven and earth,

the beginning of your conception and the end of your universe.

it was gentle

because their love for you

would remain the same.

no matter what you choose to do next,

no matter how many times you trip and fall on this life pathway you had so determined to carve out for yourself,

no matter how much your hate and doubt and wanting to tear yourself apart,

they will love you

so,

so,

much.

always

and forever.

and when you finally able to pull yourself together and square your shoulder,

you understood

how a person can die,

yet can feel so incredibly alive.