You’re a disgrace
to the concept of family
the priest won’t divulge
that fact in his homily
and I’ll stand up and scream
if the mourning remain quiet
you can deck out a lie
in a suit but I won’t buy it
I won’t join in the procession
that’s speaking their peace
using five-dollar words
while praising his integrity
and just ‘cause he’s gone
it doesn’t change the fact
he was a bastard in life
thus a bastard in death

I was at dinner with my mother tonight, it was supposed to be a normal routine dinner. She, for whatever reason, asked about you. I was confused when she did because I had no idea to react. I’ve rarely brought you up around her so for her to ask I was taken back. There were a few questions that I was asked about you that I didn’t really know what to say to. What was worse? She started listing all your good qualities and it was hard to tell her why we broke it off. It hurt because she had some really good points. You would always offer to help my parents when we were preparing dinner. That was huge. Finally my mom asked me a question that hit home. She asked me not if I loved you, but rather if you loved me. How terrible is that? I had to sit there and tell her that you probably would have died for me and I am still lost in how I really feel/felt about you. I was pretty rattled after that dinner. I was planning on going out, but I don’t feel like facing other people right now. I know I’ve said it far too many times now, but, I miss those green eyes behind those glasses. Maybe tonight I’ll remember all the joy they once brought.

I love listening to depressing music, gives me inspiration. I thought this would be a cool idea, let’s see if you can catch them all. I got the idea from a few things, mainly seeing my friend Dan incorporate a few lines of his favorite songs into his stories. I tried to write a whole story using various lines. I think it turned out well.

I do not own the lyrics quoted in this piece of fiction. All lyrics and rights are the ownership of their respective bands and authors.

This is the moment, that you know, that you tell her you love her but you don’t.

It happens every time. No matter who she is anymore, I still think this every time I wake up next to another girl. She’s just another girl. She is beautiful but she doesn’t mean a thing to me. I turn over to no longer face the what is as good as a corpse next to me to face my white blank wall. It’s cool. Just like the summer nights we shared. I recall the memories of us, I remember it just like yesterday.

Every Thursday, you would skip your early classes and we’d learn how our bodies worked. That’s how it started with us. The night that we met the back of the show, my favorite band but you didn’t know. You showed up to a party I threw a little while later with your friends. You and I snuck off to my bedroom at some point in the night to feel what it was like to be alive with each other, or at least for that night. We exchanged numbers that next morning before you left and every Thursday following you would ditch your early morning microbiology lecture in order to stay the night on Wednesday and carry over our ever expanding search of how bodies work to the morning. It wasn’t long that our weekly meeting turned into almost nightly. I would start coming over to your house, your bed. But we were on different wave-links. It was easy to see after a few weeks that we wanted different things. I was falling for you, fast. Our after sex conversations and surprisingly non-awkward breakfasts together gave me the time I needed to learn all that I needed to know about you. What I knew quickly, was I loved you. You didn’t feel the same though. One night when you came over I held back to telling you how I really felt, love. But nothing I would tell you would have any affect. All you were looking for was sex. While you were aware of my feelings for you, you still kept on with our meetings. Though you knew this wouldn’t suffice for me, I wanted something more. Something real. So we started to hang out without having sex. We would drive in my car to our favorite bars and hookah joints. The windows down with the radio loud. The cool summer nights leaked into the car filling it with the intoxicating aroma of your perfume and the dry, but sweet Arizona air. We would be singing, everybody wake up, it’s time to get down as we went home. You were anxious for sex, I won’t say that I wasn’t but I longed for what came after. Being able to hold you in my arms at night. I held you closer than anyone could ever guess. I had wanted this for so long, I had forgotten what it was like after my ex and I split. I could finally think to myself, this is fact not fiction and drift into a blissfully happy sleep. Knowing that in the morning you would still be there, with my arms still around you. You would always turn around and wake me up with as kiss before getting out of of bed. I loved that. Your face so close to mine. Jesus Christ, what a pretty face. This went on for months. The summer faded and we shed our summer skin with it. The harsh winter rolled in. I say harsh, the Arizona winters weren’t cold. But you made this years winter exceptionally cold.

I guess we got a little too serious for you, or you got bored, maybe you realized that you could do better than me; but I couldn’t do better than you. You told me it was over between us, whatever we were back then. I didn’t know how to take it. I was so confused, so distraught. How I wished you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. But you never did. You weren’t kidding when you said that it was over. You never called me, or ever saw me again. It was soul crushing. I went for weeks aimlessly and blind through the days just going through the motions. I wrote you letters, emails, texts, and even called you. Everything, in hopes that you would respond to me. I remember vividly one time I heard your friends talking about how sad that you had become after we stopped seeing each other. I went home and wrote out a lengthy text to you. I still remember every word. If it makes you less sad, I will die by your hand. If it makes you less sad, we’ll start talking again. If it makes you less sad, I’ll move out of this state, you can keep to yourself, I’ll keep out of your way. If it makes you less sad I’ll take all your pictures down. I sent that to you. This was the last time I ever heard from you. You simply wrote back, I’m sorry. But it was killing me to be without you. I was lost without you. I was missing everything about you. Your smell, your smile, your laugh. But more than anything, I was missing your bed. I hardly slept. I know that it may sound weird, but there were nights that I would drive to your house and just sit out front reminiscing about the times we shared. One night I pulled up to find your old queen mattress next to the sidewalk with a note reading, I hope you have more luck with this than I did. I guess it was more space than you needed. You probably have a new twin sized bed, with a single pillow resting beneath your single head.

I snap out of my trance of reminiscing and back to the blank white wall of my room. I promptly leave my room trying not to disturb the new girl I had brought home. I walk into the bathroom and splash water on my face. I raise my head to see the man in the mirror. I say the man, because I no longer recognize myself. I’m a broken man. After you left me I’ve never been able to fully recover from it all. What kills me the most though is not how torn up I am, but how bad you are. I thought because you were the one to break it off that you would be doing well by now. I guess maybe you just wanted to be missed. I heard from our mutual friends that you had stopped going out. Stopped eating well, you basically had stopped living without me. That kills me the most. I know that even still, even though you are in such a dark place right now, I would want nothing more than to follow you into the dark.