What do you do when life is too painful to bear? 

You live. 

Two words.

The most debilitating two words someone could tell you when you're so beaten down and broken that you believe it will never get better, that it has always been this way, that it was unbearable before and it's worse now, that it's a pattern that will repeat, even worse, in the future. There's no point in trying. Give up. A tough belief to justify and a tough belief to falsify. In the midst of it, you can't see clearly, you can't think clearly, you can't feel clearly. You see the world desaturated in bleak, grey colors. You think awfully painful thoughts, and try as you might you can't stymy the flow as your brain is bleeding out. You feel your arms and legs in one moment and another, you're floating on the concrete like a ghost, arriving to where you need to be with no idea where you were before you got there. So your brain attempts a solution, anything to stop the pain from consuming your every sense, but remember? you can't think and nothing makes sense, there's no meaning in the pain, it just hurts and hurts and hurts. And without prompting, you have it. You already know what it is. How many times have you held it in your arms, your saving grace? Last time was different. It makes sense now.

What did you fill that solution with? I have a few. My closest friends, so close I can't shed them off if I had a room of people dedicated to taking them away from me. In a way, I love them, my closest friends, so close I can't feel pain without drifting ever closer to them. In another, I hate them, my closest friends, so close I feel controlled by their every whisper like a siren's song to a sailor stuck at sea so long he can't remember the face of his one and only love. I fail to remember a moment in my life without my closest friends. So close and where am I? I don't know anymore. My eyes are closed and the pretty patterns prance upon my eyelids like candybars and butterflies. I would feel my way through the room if I could, but I have no arms and I have no legs. Just a sharp feeling in my chest so I focus my eyes on the pretty patterns. Prancing, prancing, my closest friends. So close and what am I again? I don't remember. Some thing at some time or whatever fuck it feels so good. No words now. Just feelings. My arms feel weightless but not like a ghost floating along concrete more like lifted up with a warm embrace by the one I loved and trusted most until he was gone too and it's only warm now, no presence, just warm. Lovely like a kiss. I can't feel my legs but not like a ghost more like my legs aren't legs but blurry smudges on the canvas of all around me, where was I again, Ah, it doesn't matter, my legs feel good and weightless and I can move them around but it doesn't even feel like a part of me. There's no pain in my chest, no, ghosts can't feel pain, that hole is full now, no void, I tossed all I had in there and that's full too. There are no ghosts here. This is what it's like to be human.

…

…

…

Fuck it hurts again. That hole in my chest, fuck. Where are they? my closest friends. So close and… and what? It hurts so much I can't think. I would rip my heart out of my chest if I could, if that could stop the pain. God I would do just about anything… anything? Oh, right, that friend, my closest friend. So close I almost believe her when she tells me, you don't have to hurt anymore because hurting is a choice. Who are you? No, stop, I don't want to hear it. 

Who are you? 

When did you get here? 

Why are you reading this?

What do you do when life is too painful to bear? 

It's easy.