For we are young

We will always be poor and we will always be angry. Our hearts will yearn for others and cry out to be loved. We will shed our tears and we will break our backs. For we are young and we are eager. Pain received is pain enjoyed, for it is attention. Our spirits will creak wearily under the weight of our own thoughts. Our eyelids, heavy though they may be, will resist sleep for we feel every moment may be our last. We will seek every thrill and throw caution to the wind. For we are young and we are willing. Our knuckles will bleed and our sweat will be shed. We will forge a living and build a home. We will mourn for what might have been and live in the past. Our stomachs will ache with hunger and our bodies with sickness but we will not show it. We will put on a smile and march on. For we are young, we are old, and we shall live.

On a cold winter's night it will find you. The feeling, the fear. Like a million little spiders creeping up your backbone, it contours to the hills and valleys of your vertebrate. Like a noose, the rope rough and rugged around your neck, it chokes you and steals your breath away. Like a knife it cuts deep into your gut, a pain so immense you can do nothing but wish to die. Oh, but you are dying. Like the cloth bound around your wrists, it renders you helpless. Like the hand over your mouth, it renders you speechless.
Then it's gone.
Then it's over.
It's finally over.

As I lay in my bed, I could feel it wash over me. You know the feeling. Your heart is sinking, it is slowly ripped apart, you are consumed. I tried to breathe slowly, to no avail. The sobs I held in my chest threatened to wrack my body, the tears held behind tightly closed eyelids made every bid for escape. I could not let myself cry over you. I could not become weaker than what I already was. Though my heart was painted loudly on my sleeve, I made every attempt to hide it. How could I be strong? How could I stand on my own when every bone in my body ached from pure exhaustion, when my mind had humbled itself and bowed in defeat? My heart wanted what it wanted, I could not stop that. And I couldn't stop the hurt you inflicted. You had succeeded. You had torn me apart.