virtue in pain.

my mom taught me something very important as i was growing up. well, granted, both of my parents taught me many things which i later categorized and stratified into priority levels of importance.

but what i've gained, what i've held on to, most of all through these controversial years is never go to bed angry.

boy and i never left each other in a huff, with harsh words still clinging to our lips, or with furrowed brows covering frightened, angry tears. if it required chasing after him, fighting the urge to scream. or if it required him breaking down my door to get me to talk about it. we always ended our days with arms wrapped tightly around each other, quiet smiles, drying those so angry tears.

when i called my mom, screaming, hysterical, at seven in the morning on that fateful monday, she asked few questions before getting off the phone with me to buy a plane ticket to new orleans.

everyday, i talked to my mom two three four times, crying, angry, deluded, tired, and scared.

half an hour after boy passed, i called my mom. "he's gone, mom." and she listened to me cry for hours. and i just wanted to ask her to make it stop, make this fucking world stop spinning around, bring him back to me, take me home, anything to bring me off my knees and off that sidewalk, still warm from the warmth of the first sunny day in weeks, in front of that hospital. and i knew she would, if she could. i knew that if she could have done anything to let him hold me, she would have.

my mom taught me that strength was an illusion, a pretty little word we all thought up to placate ignoring pain, a facile way to describe how it feels when you have to harden against fists or throw them. how strong you are is not the deciding issue. how strong you are has nothing to do with who you are to become once the shackles are shed. covered in scar tissue, still bleeding, fawning over the aesthetics of each turn of metaphorical skin, i'm not strong, but my mom taught me better than to freeze myself against pain, against torture, against hell. she taught me to stand tall, let the tears crawl down my face, and never do wrong by those that i love.

that which does not kill you will only teach you more, and i've never gone to bed with anger lashing at my throat. i never will.