It's times like these, all alone in this prison. The right song comes on and pulls at me and I can feel the past. As if I could just close my eyes and be there again. I remember all the bad times too. It's not some surreal longing for some rose tinted memories. I wanted to jump off a bridge and kill myself. I wrote depressing songs and poems. I was picked on, tormented, abused, shut down. I lied, manipulated, was selfish. I gave up on school. But what I did have was my best friend. I was a terrible friend but it was mostly because I was jealous of what she had. We shared so much in the short time we had together. We experienced a 13 year olds version of love, we scared ourselves silly, we bought drugs we never even used. We started cutting together because we wanted to be vampires, all the while every adult who knew us thought there was something wrong with us but we were just curious. Later on it did turn into something to ease great emotional pain but when I had her as a best friend I wasn't afraid to be myself and just experience life even if I was only 13/14. We even started a band together even though none of us knew how to play our chosen instruments. She was the sister I wish I'd had.

It was a tuesday. Just after spring break. We usually talked for hours almost every night. She'd gone to her grandma's for spring break and suddenly stopped answering her phone for days. I left voice mail after voice mail, I became very angry that she was avoiding me. I take the bus home. Back then it was just me and my mom and she didn't get home till an hour or so after I did. There was a message on the answering machine and being the curious kid I was of course I listened. It was her mom. All she said was that a terrible tragedy had happened in their family and that my mom should call her immediately. Of course I had no idea what it could be. Her grandma could've died or anything. But I started crying anyways. My mom comes home, sees I've been crying and automatically assumes I did something. She starts yelling at me to tell her what I did. I have nothing to tell her so she calls my friends mom and I go to my room. An hour later maybe I don't remember exactly my mom calls me downstairs and uses that classic line, "Kali was really sick and passed away" or something tothat effect. After that its just empty. I still went to school the next, you know just that feeling of surrealness, it didn't quite hit me. Although the whole day I was biting my tongue so I wouldn't cry. I said nothing to any of my friends. She was the only real friend I'd had in so long and I know I was hers. She died in 2004, when I was 14 and now I"m 20. It still hurts. I wish I could have what we had again. I had another best friend for nearly seven years and it was never the same. I can't even talk to her anymore despite her efforts. Even though I ignore her, she still texts and asks if I want a christmas present or if i want to come to her party. I just can't. I wish I could be someone else but I'll never be the same again. What gets me the worst, is looking at Kali's picture and having to really try to piece together how she was, how she acted, what her voice sounded like. I hate it. I smoke to forget but I'd kill to remember just that. The memories are so strong but so few. I always thought she would've survived my death better than I have hers but maybe it would have been the same. I still feel like she was more deserving of the life I've had and squandered but I'm sure that's normal. It's still hard to believe all these years later. I almost wish sometimes that she just moved away and they lied to me but who am I kidding? Lately I've been thinking how lucky she was to miss out on all this pain and saddness that life is. But no one deserves to have their life cut short. She really shaped who I am today I must admit. She helped me be more logical and question everything. I always thought in some horrible way that her death brought good in the way of me going to the school I went to etc. But that was the four miserable year prelude to the disaster my life has blossomed into. I would have gone to private school just to be in the same school with her again and it would've happened. But life is unfair and cruel and a game not worth playing. Because that's what life is, a game. I really wish people would stop kidding themselves. We evolved and as all things do we will one day be extinct, most likely by our own hands or devices. And I know the world will give a sigh of relief on that day because the AIDS like virus the human race has become will be gone and the world can recover only, I am sure to be plagued again by the next intellegent life form to evolve. Such is the circle.