you don't

think about killing yourself anymore, at least not in the real sense. Maybe you never even meant it, really meant it, because what you always pictured was your own funeral. A Tom Sawyer in your own right, you dreamed up all the adoring things people would say. Who'd cry the loudest and linger the longest after they'd left you in the dirt.

You wanted to be loved, but you didn't want to hurt. You didn't know how to ask the people in your life to love you now, in the present, while you're all still here. We spend so much time worrying about all the things that don't matter, and so little saying all the things that do.

But now you've got these boys who look up to you, and you're something of a father. They're pure in their affection. They tell you they love you with the same ease as breathing. You wonder when you stopped being that way too—what it was in the world that beat it out of you, and how you might find your way back. On hands and knees you sometimes pray, dear god, please let me find my way back.