Valium and Vodka

We were fatally attracted and attracted by our desire for fatality.

I met a boy in school who looked like hell and smelled like cynicism and cheap whiskey.

He was bad company, but his warped ego spoke soliloquies to my heart about self-hatred and our unfair existence in this shit-hole turned life. He laid traps of contempt with his wicked sarcasm and great hair as bait. I fell for it every time.

His peak hours ran from two o’clock and further into the mouth of morning when he would desperately text me; as the night was preparing to make a feast out of his vinegar tasting insides. I, well versed in the tongues of the darkness, but equally as naive for the sake of friendship, would tug on his heartstrings trying to bring him home.

My positivity pissed him off; my pity made him want to kill himself even more. He was drowning in himself sans whiskey, and I lived hundred of miles away. He twisted his lips into a forlorn grimace, a perfect picture to accompany his text asking me to kill him. I was too selfish to tell him yes, and too sensible to tell him no. The routine became second nature to me; I skipped over his command each time and delved into my bullshit routine of asking questions and assuring him when I could. Yet, my advice was bullshit and he knew it, because I used one hand to text and the other to shed light in the dark crevices of my own mind.

We were toxic together, Valium and vodka. We fed each other these deflated lies, so fake it tarnished our cheap jewelry as we typed it, to make ourselves feel useful; we told each other our problems to give someone the truth if our dreams came true and we finally disappeared.

We would never do anything, we both said. Too much work, too much of a cop-out, too sad for the parents, we said after admitting the pain was both too numbing and too unbearable simultaneously. I was so drunk, we said the day after we confessed our plans to finish ourselves. I just need to get it out, without actually doing it, we fluff after a thirty-minute breakdown.