the hardest thing I've ever done

early May, 2015. 10am. my brother and I are playing hooky at the second-best Waffle House in town. hashbrowns, friends, vanilla coke. an ideal small town morning. that time of year still had that strange bliss to it then, where school is functionally over and you're basically just showing up to hang out. life's carefree and there's only good things going on and more to look forward to. entire childhoods fit in those few weeks; at least, the proper stuff that childhoods are made of.

a mild winter abruptly gave way to a premature and liberating solstice that year (in the South, the de facto beginning of summer can come as early as April). we were all running a little freer than we might otherwise do, spirited by something as unknown to us as it was intimate. we might have stayed at that Waffle House all day or walked the interstate and figured it out from there. the pictures agree; cameras were a little more honest then, documenting rather than dictating.

coincidence, always insured, called closing time on our breakfast; our money ran out and my dad called. we weren't in trouble, but he was coming to get us. we stepped outside and met him almost immediately. once in the backseat, he told us what happened and took us home. my other brothers stared as I walked in. I don't know how long I laid on my bed; young, familiar, grown, unknown. I made it back outside and went to school. halls are empty. 4th period, literature, near noon. me and two other people in there. once again lyrics and presence are made befuddlingly real. I'm not on the outside looking in, I'm not on the inside looking out. I'm in the dead fucking middle. thinking, wondering, worrying, waiting. passing three years by in one seat.

they got back, took their seats. I don't remember what I did, in that class or the next. maybe I talked to them. maybe I didn't. maybe I made em laugh, maybe I didn’t. all I know is that it took so long I forgot for a moment. it wasn't until we were leaving for lunch. I left the room and when I came back, there they were, propped up on the desks. silent, motionless. thinking, wondering, hurting. they knew. I went for a hug, and then the inevitable. we were in the library, ad-hoc. if the weight of everything was too great to carry on elsewhere, you went there. expectations were left at the door; it just cost your innocence.

I found my spot against the front desk, still warm. hardly spoke. looks were enough. kids don't hurt like that, and adults can take a stance on it. we got stuck, uprooted, buried, disillusioned, and impassioned. our age, we could feel everything, just couldn't process it. couldn't express it. couldn't.

focusing, I saw him. across from me, at the table. squalling, reaching, grasping, shaking. it broke him. seventy years lay ahead and he'd lost it all. we'd lost our second friend. it was too much. our age, we were finding ourselves out. death was antithetical. when the world is first opening up to you, finding out it can end you, and you can end you, is too much. he knew they were gone, gone. memories slipping from grey matter to grey matter, personality erased permanently. there was nothing to do.

I barely saw him; my eyes dart. in that moment, I felt it, briefly and intensely. propped against that desk, early May, I flashed back to January, a few months earlier, where I saw him go through the same grief after our first friend took their own life. in an instant, I relived that first experience, simultaneously going through a new one. too much. I disconnected. the wave of emotion, processing, and disassociation I experienced is unlike and unmatched by anything else I've ever experienced. in my childhood home, I felt the pang of death twice, cementing life’s corruption. with all that new knowledge, I didn't know anything. you don't walk through hell to start over; we can't all be sisyphus. sisyphus is only happy if he's sisyphus; we must imagine him lonely. not throwing seams to the abyss, coming undone. five years later, and I might have.

https://i.imgur.com/uoxmyWK.jpg