Phantom Pains

I really wonder if I was supposed to die that day, maybe I did. Things have changed so much since that one foolish night and I can't help but wonder, if I died what is this? I don't believe in heaven or hell but I've been entertaining the idea, trying to figure out which I might be in. In some ways I'm very happy, I feel like I'm accepted but in another way I'm so unsure, insecure and worried about everything around me.

I look back in awe at how fast you can lose everything you hold dear to you. How fast you can disappear from a place and from the hearts and minds of those who occupy it. Was I loved until the end? Do they still think about me? I've been driven to tears just thinking of their faces, realizing I'll probably never seem them again, but what do they really feel? People say they won't forget you but a week later I haven't heard from anyone.

I feel like a ghost, only haunting myself. Why is it that you can be experiencing so many new things in a whole different world and still be completely invested somewhere else? My jobs might be transferable, my body and assets can relocate but all I'm left with is phantom pains and a shell of what I used to be. What do I need, what will put my soul to rest?

Looking back on the life I had I can't help but feel remorse that I ended it. My whole life was there, I had great friends, two jobs that I really liked going to, and I could have had the girl of my dreams, even if I've realized they were nightmares. I personally destroyed every relationship that I spent the last six months building. All the time I spent texting, talking, comforting, encouraging. All the hours I spent at those jobs building my reputation, the devotion and planning... I can never go back now. I can never fix it and I think for the first time in my life I feel I'm going to leave behind regrets.

Maybe it would have been better if I had died that night in the hospital bed. I guess I'm a coward, I would rather have people miss me than to miss them myself. I wonder though, would it have caused more pain or less if I hadn't woken up? Those friends would have forgotten me either way, a week later they would probably never think of me again. But me... I can never forget their faces, I don't know if I'll ever be able to let go.

The mementos and memories left behind don't help but I'm far too sentimental to let go of them. When my friend gave me her lighter, which she probably only gave to me because it was the only thing she had on her, I wanted to keep it forever. I think I only smoke that pack of empty dreams just to remember her. I disappeared just like the smoke, gone in seconds and forgotten even faster.

As I move into my new life and jobs I know that pain will draw me back but I'll recover. The bullet has to be removed before the wound can truly heal. If I kept going on the infection may have spread, perhaps amputation was the right choice. Yet I still feel those phantom pains in my heart and the only thing I can think of to ease the pain is the same poison that landed me here.