I sat at my desk, staring at my blank computer screen. What am I going to do now? How am I going to live? My whole life has changed dramatically in the last minute since I found out. Since I knew.

I got up and collapsed on my bed. What was the point now? What was the point in anything? Why try when everyday I would have this knowledge in the back of my head, haunting me, laughing at me?

My phone buzzed and I lethargically sat up to grab it off my bedside table. Who would be texting me now? Now when absolutely nothing mattered anymore?

It was from my mom. Asking how I was. How I was taking the news. I didn't respond. What was the point? She knew. Everyone knew.

I looked over at my garbage can. I had wasted so much of what I had! Why didn't I treasure it more at the time? Why didn't I realize the true value of what I had been blessed with?

I started to cry. My life was in shambles. Nothing could ever feel right again. I would never recover from this setback.

Suddenly I remembered something. I ran down the stairs, around the corner, and burst into the kitchen at top speed. I have it. I have the answer! How I'm going to live!

I opened my secret cupboard. Inside was the most precious commodity in the world. What everyone would want soon. What I had en mass.

Chocolate.

While everyone else pined, I had the last stash known to mankind. Whoever had the chocolate, had the power. And I had the chocolate.

As I sink into the snow

I feel like I should go

The cold is frigid

The margins are ridged

Of this world

Of ice and snow and furled

Life exists in everlasting plight

Never giving time for hopes to take flight

Forever unforgiven

Forever misgiven

Given this story you may laugh and joke

But it is not for common folk

For only those who are lost and have been forewarned

To the waking world where there is light and warmth

No warmth, no breath

No hearth, but death

All hopes cease

To exist and all to please

This cold cold world

That sucks you under and hurled

All emotion far

Shall all those who land here

Be ever frigid and never come near

To others who have found themselves in this place

Of no dress and no lace

No earthly desires, only the memories of those loved

Shan’t exist evermore beloved

Kindled flames of love still live here

Glowing faintly so near

In the torrent of snow and ice

We are many but we are small; like a fox and mice

Like a lion and its prey

We lie in wait for the next day

When the sun will be fulfilled and we will find our purpose

And the hope of one who will set us free in earnest

Dwindles down to nothing and lifts us like a dove

But beware, for the concept of love

Is a dangerous thing

For it can break you

Or it can make you

So go forth, I have warned you, stay away from this winter

Run, run away from here, be a sprinter

Goodbye; farewell

Do not dwell

In this place of ice and snow

The place where you shouldn’t go…

As I slink closer, I spot a flame

A flame of kindled love, tortured and maimed

The flame then flickers

Once then twice then the wicker

Catches into fire

As the flame roars and the fire grows higher

I run in fear of this growing disaster

But then I realize, the flames are warm, the heat is plastered

To my cold cold body, I slowly grow closer to the dancing flame

I may be recalled this moment as when the reality came

I have been found by my purpose, to be away from here

I’ll never forget how it felt to be so near

To death itself, and endless cold

I found my person, my hope, my gold

So if you find yourself here,

Get a special person to lend a hand quite near

To this world where lost souls go

Where we bend low

With self doubt and self hate

Brewing in anger and not quite great

So find your mate

And don’t brew your hate

Stay away

Far away from this world of which all betray

Goodbye; farewell

Do not dwell

In this land of ice and snow

The place where you should not go…

November 8th, 8:43 p.m.

I ripped open the passenger door, breathless. Maya, still warm, laid limp as I pulled her in my arms. Her blood coated everything in sight. The overwhelming scent of rust invaded the car; it clung to the dashboard, the windshield, the linoleum seat covers... it clung to my hands. Deafened my senses. I couldn’t hear anything, although I could feel the sensation of screams rising from my throat between my gasps for air.

I don’t really know how long I stayed there, kneeling on the crumbled asphalt and cradling her broken body. They told me to move away from her. Why? No, you don’t understand. She’s my best friend, I need to stay with her. Please let me stay with her! I watched as they took photographs of her body. For evidence, they told me, as I sat with a blanket over my shoulders. Who gave me this blanket? I couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. “What happened? Can you tell me what you saw?” I heard over and over. I tried to answer, but no words escaped my mouth.

November 9th, 1:56 a.m.

My parents had arrived soon after, and when I was finally allowed to leave, we drove back in silence. When we got home, I silently went into my room. I felt numb. I gingerly sat on the stool that stood in front of my vanity. It had been a gift for one of my birthdays, years ago. Carved details of wood painted over with a cheap white paint delicately framed a large mirror that I used every day to get ready for school.

I stared at my reflection. Oh god, I hadn’t even realized that during those hours, I must’ve gotten her blood smeared on my cheeks. I frantically pulled on my sleeves and tried rubbing it off my face in a panic. No no no no no, I thought, I can’t think about her right now, I need to get this off, oh god, oh god, oh g-

Suddenly, a loud CRACK! brought me back to the reality of my dark bedroom. I gasped and shot up, backing away towards the wall behind me. After a few seconds of silence, I slowly approached my mirror.

Somehow, a few inches of the glass had fractured in an outwards-branching crack, just in its upper-right corner.

November 12th, 2:14 p.m.

“It’s not your fault, dear,” they said. The whole morning I had heard such condolences meant to bring me some kind of comfort. How could I feel better as I watched Maya lowered into the ground? The sun had shone brilliantly, but I felt insulted that the day could be so beautiful with her death clouding my mind. Inside her home, the dull aching in my chest became a throbbing pain as the framed pictures of her childhood seemed to loom above my head and crush me into the ground. Oh, god… this was too much. I had to leave. I had to get out. I hastily bid her parents goodbye, who paused their mourning to give me a hug, and ran down her street for a few minutes until I reached my own house and collapsed in my bedroom.

The sound of my crying overwhelmed me. Gnawing pain swelled in my chest and ate away at me in waves. This was never supposed to happen.We were supposed to see each other graduate. Help each other through the maze-like transition from adolescence to adulthood. Grow up with each other. Fragments of our shared memories rose in my mind—Maya comforting me, explaining how to do our calculus homework, and being on the receiving end of hour-long phone calls about the most trivial things. She was always there for me… but I wasn’t there for her. All of the sudden, another loud CRACK! resonated from my vanity mirror. I could now see my distorted reflection staring up at it from the floor, my image fully consumed by the splintered glass. Then, I saw the blood on my face. Maya’s blood? How? No! No, no, no, not again, please not again.

I cried out and ran to my broken mirror, prepared to scrub off her blood when I halted. My face was already bare. I stared at my fragmented reflection, confusion wrecking my head as my heart began racing with fright. I wanted to run, but I knew that I couldn’t escape this hell. I choked on the last of my sobs and tried to sleep in silence.

November 16th, 12:19 a.m.

I haven’t left my room since her funeral. I ache to hear Maya’s voice sometimes. Often, I’ll wake up thinking that she’s calling my name, when in reality, I’m alone. I spend most of my hours sitting on my stool, gazing at my reflection. Sometimes, I don’t recognize myself anymore. The girl on the other side seems to lag—as if she merely imitates my expressions in a game of copy-cat. I sat there once more and buried my head in my hands as I remembered what happened.

November 8th, 8:32 p.m.

We had just finished eating dinner after a day of hanging out. I was driving with the windows down, the wind tangling our hair while we entertained each other with jokes and laughed. “Let’s stop at a gas station quickly,” I suggested. She frowned. “It’s already dark, can’t we just go home? We have our Calc test tomorrow, you know, and we both need to study for it.” We did, but I didn’t really care. I hated the reminder of school. The thought of spending the next few hours alone in my room and studying integrals with frustration felt like a slow suffocation. If mindless procrastination was the solution, I would gladly oblige, and Maya knew that. “It won’t be that long, I promise. I’ll look around for some snacks and be right back,” I reassured her. I could tell she wanted to protest, but instead, she pursed her lips and looked away. She never objected to me. I resented myself. Why was I so selfish?

We pulled into the parking lot and I jumped out of my car without bothering to lock the doors or to say good-bye. Minutes passed as I roamed the aisles of processed snacks, occasionally passing a tall man doing the same, but glancing at the parking lot every now and then. I thought nothing of it.

He soon left without purchasing anything, but all I was thinking was that there would be no long line in an otherwise empty convenience store. Just as I was about to pay the bored teen waiting behind the checkout counter, a scream resounded throughout the store. Whipping my head towards the source, I saw the man who left without paying in the parking lot, trying to pull open my car door while Maya screamed and desperately pulled on the handle from the inside. He had a gun in his hand. As he was shouting open, he pulled the trigger. For a moment, everything was still. He suddenly looked up at me with a look of horror on his face, then fled. I couldn’t breathe as I saw her body crumple against the car seats. I flung open the car door and could only hold her silently in shock as the police arrived.

November 16th, 12:20 a.m.

The sound of tentative cracking brought me back to the present. I lifted my head back to my reflection, who stared back into my eyes. Oh my god, this is my fault. My fault. It’s my fault that she’s dead. It’s my fault. I began gasping with guilt but stopped as I noticed something peculiar. The cracks on the mirror were slowly spreading, branching out further and further, until the entire surface was covered in jagged fragments. My broken reflection stared at me again, except this time she faced me with an expression of betrayal on her face. “Yes. Your fault,” she hissed.

The mirror finally burst into a million pieces and shattered, leaving behind an empty frame and an empty girl.

It was the last time I was going to live and yet I didn't know it! But let's take it from the beginning, from the day I started to chase or play with death.

My life was never interested and I was always a person who was unlucky! I lost a favorite person of mine at my teenage years and it was really hard for me to force a smile but I learnt to be fake so that I can be the person everyone wanted to see but on my inside I was sad and depressed.

Death crossed my mind, started to talk. Mr. Death was talking to me every single night, even in my dreams, which was weird and was making me stay up at nights. I had no idea why this was happening but getting killed became my only solution for those I cared about. If I was dead, they would live happily, they wouldn't have a person like me being an ass, not talking much, sit there and just smile to everyone or annoying everyone that was what I was thinking every single day and night.

I remember the day I harmed myself or better my wrists but it wasn't with the knife cause I couldn't get one so yeah, I did that (silly me right?). From that day things was not the same for me as I was only living to die by trying to cause it!

After a few years I made it and stopped it until a few months ago, where I had my first experience with being in love and my ex was really making it hard for me because I was feeling a little trapped. Let me stop here and say that I had trust issues and didn't talk much. So back to that, I knew my ex would be bad news but I gave it a try only to see that I was right.

The fact that I wasn't talking much and I was keeping everything inside, made him...I don't know exactly...At first we were ok but later I started to think that he somehow was trying to become someone? Like when he met my bestie he said be careful of her don't hang out much *i know her since 2011-12*, so that's when was I didn't like his attitude so I was trying to keep my eyes open around him and oh angels I'm glad I did. He was making me feel like I was always wrong and him right, he demanded from me to be how I was if I wasn't talking to him the way he wanted, he was making sure to be there when I wanted to go out with and if I said no he was starting to say things like "your friends don't like me? or did they say anything bad?" so I was always invited him. When I was saying that I wanna go to my bestie who lives hours away from he used to say I will come too, you are not going alone and if I dared to say something he was like "why? you don't want me with you?, why to stay at her house with her bf there and me not?". So I never went to see my friend because of that. He wanted always to be there maybe to control me? I don't fucking know, but I somehow I started to feel awful and cry but it doesn't end there.

At nights I couldn't sleep, I wanted to cry and so I did while I was praying to god and angels to take me with them, I didn't want to live anymore because I thought I was a nothing, a nobody. I was the person that noone ever heard when I was talking or tried to talk. So Mr. Death came back to my mind and made me think about death again and how everyone would be great without me! I even looked at the knives and wanted to take one to stab me or cut me.

That ex of mine continued with trying with his own way to change me and I don't mean on my inside but outside the way I look. He saw me once with makeup and then he kept saying for days how gorgeous I was, how I should do makeup often or how about buying my own set of make up and tell my cousin to teach me to do it.

I told him one day that I was gonna start work out cause I wanted to lose my weight, so I would download this app to start soon and at first you can say he cared by asking if I started or if there is something for boys too but then he asked again and again and again. You DO NOT do that so I figured he actually cared for me to lose weight so to go out with me or whatever because we were going out 1 day a week or month, plus we had no communication at all.

Well I had enough of that and just when I thought he couldn't take it far or it was my imagination he started to say things again about my bestie because she send him a message "if i found out you hurt my best friend i will be there" so he thought, he was threaten and he started to threaten her with no reason. You can imagine how shocked I was and he then wanted to take his side because he was right and my friend a bitch witch.

I felt so angry and disappointed by him that I lost my interest for good and I asked him to give me space. Weeks gone by another problem came like with friends. His friends that I never met. He one day said that he will be out with a girl from his gang (mean friends), a girl I never heard of but only that day on the phone. And then he kept going out with common friends and not common, he even hugged one of them and I never knew till my friend told me and showed me a pic.

So the day I met with him was to break up and he even then kept saying that I was never like that, that I was different and that my bestie is telling to do that and that I only speak like that because she is telling me what to say. I tried to make him see that I had my reason plus that he threatened me to kill himself because of a "fight" we had ONCE. He couldn't understand and he kept saying that I was talking bullshit...So then was the time I tried to live but he kept my hand in a way that I tried to call for help!

That person made me think that I don't deserve to be in this world and it still gets into my head like death is all I see! Yes I do believe that everybody will be better without me in this life and I felt it way too much with my ex and there were times that I was throwing myself to that..I wanted to walk in the middle of the street so cars can hit me or I was wishing for my death, I wanted to be killed so bad! I literally flirted with death because he was making me feel bad about me and my life! And it scares me because sometimes I still think of dying like right now if I could!

To have loved then lost, when every odd was in favour of succession rather then seen as an undesirable pain-staking detention that overshadows firstly before resorting to applicably forcing itself onto a sad soul repeatedly for the prevention of joyous occasions, purpose driven happines, all findings that accumilated as collections attainable from specific walks of life, frames of mind, points of order all over where it was even then permissable a find to have found on the face of a stranger who stairs without making a sound, sight for sore eye relations, as a dismissable occurance. Easily alongside all necessary relevant positive vibrations is it thought to through simultaneous existence put up a resistance pushing aside all need for mutual insistence giving way to isolated instances which overbears as burdens housing itself perminently. There's no time to reminisce about happy go lucky reasons of past tense cases which would otherwise be places to hopefully dismiss the punishment, the anguish of being a sad lonely, insignificant other. To despise having ever been a love comes naturally when this pain claims & drains a being who cannot shake the feeling of a heart screaming for a means to an end. That selection unchosen, assigning itself control over every fibre of the unfortunate casualty as a force to reckon with continuously beating the one who seeks a way out but finds none repeatedly subjects painfully to an assualt equivlent to that of a chastising. If it hadn't been this way, the otherwise free to roam about leisurely charecter, would seek to provisionally have sought out only peace love & happiness effortlessly. The effective kiss of death doubling up as a blow hinting to clutching at the jugular restricts whatever the term power would normally convict someone other to beleive it to be. Hostile intent issues unending caution to the wind, a tensing of ambience, the aroma now fitting for a loner who's stronghold was once a fortress, a refuge for means to defence when rendering all negativity effectiveless, untill loosing a companion came into the picture, flipping the script completely.

He threw with all his might, but the stone didn’t skip. He breathed slowly, mad that it sank before grazing the surface of the water even once. He looked over his shoulder and saw her. She was smiling.

It couldn’t have been that bad if she was smiling.

Then he grabbed her hand. She looked at him. They both blushed. He dropped her hand out of embarrassment.

He began to apologize, but was cut off by her taking his hand back. She gave him another stone. He once again threw with all his might, this time not even watching to see how far it skipped. Instead he turned and kissed her. She kissed him back. All was well on that strange day in July.

They went back to his house and sat on the porch swing while eating creamsicles. They were her favorite. And she was his favorite. They talked for hours until the sun set and the stars lit their faces. It was getting late.

She had to go home. He took her hand and they walked to her house together. They got to her driveway. She kissed him again, and walked to the door. He could see her smiling. He was smiling too. All was well on that strange day in July.

They spent every day together the rest of that summer. Eating popsicles on his porch, sometimes laying on her driveway before she went inside. They were always together and wouldn't have it any other way.

Weeks turned to years and they were adults. Living together in an apartment complex. No more porch swing, but they made do. All they needed was each other. Then he got down on one knee.

She walked down the aisle in white. A tear slid down his face when he saw her. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, anxious. The anxiety slipped away when he saw her beaming at him. They looked at each other.

It was all a blur, and then they kissed. People cheered. They looked at their family, but only briefly. All he wanted was to look at her. All she wanted was to look at him. All was well on that strange day in July.

Time passed. They were still living in an apartment, but were building a house in the suburbs. She smiled and showed him a stick. There were two pink lines. He beamed and they hugged for a long time. He didn’t want to let go of her. They were happy.

The house was done, and they moved in. They cried for a long time. He still didn’t want to let go of her. She looked like a shell of a person. He could see the anguish in her eyes as tears streamed down her face. It wasn’t her fault. He still loved her more than ever.

They lived in that house for a while, but it didn’t feel like home. It felt like a reminder of what could’ve been. They moved back to the town where they grew up. They felt better there.

One day she wasn’t home. The house was quiet without her. He looked for her at the lake. She was holding a stone while sitting on the ground. He sat down next to her even though the rocks were jagged. She lay her head on his shoulder. He kissed her and brushed the hair from her face.

They sat there for a long time. He was afraid if he let go, she would evaporate. Then eventually she did. And he sat alone on that strange day in July.