The Positivity Issue (v.13)

“Two weeks?” I thought. “No Way” I swore it
had only been one.
For two weeks I skipped class everyday and got
high. I told myself it was okay to continue this way
if I could just bury myself negative thoughts.
Long story short, I passed high school that year
and fortunately my parents never really knew
the extent of how close I was to not graduating
on time. I got to walk the stage and be applauded
and squaded with everyone else that
day. However, I was not sure that I deserved the
acknowledgement so graduation day was full of
guilt and fear that my parents would find out.
I was cracking again. They were proud of me,
smiling. They saw that I had graduated high
school despite everything. Honestly, it was a
good feeling.
More recently I met this guy named Emmy. I
was twenty two, he was thirty-five, but we had
a lot in common; young, black, artist. He said
he saw a little bit of himself in me and immediately
a shudder ran down my back. From my
high school experience I knew that as soon as
someone sees potential in me, they would start
to expect a lot.
I was working in a city that I wasn’t familiar
with, so I would stay with him three days here,
two days there. Naturally we got to know each
other pretty quickly, his eyes always watching
to be sure that I was acting the way he
would’ve if he could go back in time and talk
to his younger self.
Potential.
po·ten·tial: having or showing the capacity to become
or develop into something in the future. I
swallow that word like a bag of rocks.
Emmy took care of me, so in a lot of ways I
owed respect to his crazy methodology. If he
asked me to do something I would do it and
do it right the first time. To be honest, I never
thought about making a mistake because he
had become my friend too. But, when I finally
uffed up I remembered my responsibility to
keep things the way he liked it.
He asked me to lock the doors when I was done
getting my bag from his car, but I didn’t. He had
that look in his eyes like “You know? That smile
isn’t going to get everywhere.”
I froze in suspense and made my best attempts
at being respectful, responsible, and redeemable.
Emmy was cool so disappointing him was not.
Believe me when I say the doors to his car were
locked every day from then on out.
When I was in the thick of it [being scolded by
Emmy] I could feel the walls closing in again.
I was becoming glass. Emmy was serious, Mr.
Mayhem was serious too, and so were my parents.
I wanted to explode, or maybe just disappear.
I wanted it all to go away.
I think back to that time in my freshman year of
high school. Finals were approaching and the
walls were closing in again. It got really dark.
So, I planned do something that I would never
be able to talk about again. I went to my basement,
tears running down my face, and wrote
the note that would explain why I did it. Why I
killed myself.
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