I decided to use “the knife belongs to me” in the last sentence rather than the first and in my own way

    

    The rain hit the window as my tears hit the ground. “Just a little bit longer, please.” I cried  while the warm red liquid ran down my hands as squeezed his shirt. He looked at me with pain and pity in his eyes. “It’s okay, Penelope” he muttered weakly. I began to add more pressure to his wound, hoping that it would somehow stop the blood flow. But it just kept coming. 
   
   “Please” I begged, “just a little while longer, the ambulance should be here in a couple of minutes, you just need to stay awake for a little while longer jack” I bawl. “just a little while longer”
  
   He then grab my blood soaked hands and moved them into his. He squeezed them as hard as he could then dropped them like a bag of rocks. His eyes rolled back into his head and he let out a weak sigh of relief. 
  
   The sky then fell silent, and the birds quit singing. My head hit my knees, and the world began spinning. I almost instantly lost all control of my words. “I love you so much Jack, so much” I sobbed, then began to stand, making my way slowly over to the water fountain near the swings. When I reached it, I scrubbed my hands and clothes as hard as I could, but the blood stained everything. Everything. 

   I stood there for a second in disbelief but I was interrupted by the sounds of police sirens. I make my way back to Jack as the ambulance pulls right onto the grass. I can see the EMT’s running to his help with a stretcher and body bag. 

   I grabbed his hand once more and said my final goodbyes. “Jackson Lee Culver, I love you with my whole heart and soul. I’ve always loved you and forever will. I never told you before because I knew you loved her more, I had very slim chances of winning you over. But now my chances are up and you are gone, and that is worse than being told you don’t love me, because now ill never know.” 

   An EMT then grabbed my shoulder and shoved me out the way and started screaming strict orders to the others. I then was approached by a couple of officers with handguns and cuffs. Screaming more orders, but this time in my direction. I threw my hands up and dropped the knife. I then am cuffed and thrown into the back of a police car with plastic seats and no handles. I watch as they lift Jack onto the stretcher and out of the park. 

   An older cop, known around town, then approached me with a mountain of questions I had no intention of answering. I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t plan it, it just kind of happened. 
  
   My mother always told me I loved to hard and to much for anyone. He asked questions like “when did this all start?” and who’s knife did you use?” They had simple answers I wasn’t willing to give up. It started with the lies he told of loving me, and finished with the deadly truth behind them all. I replied to his questions about my weapon of choice, “and the knife is mine, it belongs to me.”

I see you. Even when you think I don’t. I hear your jokes and conspiracy’s about the world. Sometimes I even let out a chuckle at the sarcastic things you say. I see when you lean down to fix your hair in the mirror, you always missed that one curl. I seen when you got your first boyfriend and when you had your first breakup. Ive seen your highest of highs and lowest of lows. I see you. Even if you don’t see me I see you.

You try to fit in were you don’t belong. You hold on to your dying friendships a little too long. You have a heart of gold and a mouth of steel.

Ive watched you grow up for years. But this one seems a little different. Your words and short and quick like a bullet. Your eyes full of a depth never once reached. And your mouth doesn’t seem to move unless spoken to.

Maybe its just a phase. Or a facade. But whatever it is I see it. On you and the rest of the faces of bus 121. Each year they’re drained of their youth a little bit more, but this year, it has sucked them dry.

Even though I see everything, I say nothing. I try to fine a nice line between what is and isn’t my business. I help as much as I can with a “good morning” and a nice warm smile, but nothing more. Because I am too, drained of my youth and respect.

I was once that young girl with a head full of curly hair and a dream. A dream to be more than what I was shown, to be more than what Ive always known. But, dreams end, and you wake to an empty house and bills you can barley afford to pay.

Dreams are only dreams to people like me. But her, she was different. When I would look into her hurt filled eyes I didn’t see a dreamer, I saw an inventor. An inventor of her own happiness and sorrow. Even though her smile was never full and the lines around her mouth came from a cigarette, she was never really sad. Just hurt, and tired. And that doesn’t make you sad, just makes you hurt and tired. The one thing I could relate too. So tired, yet so young.

don’t leave me please loneliness has never been a friend to me it leaves me thinking about you and your red shoes the ones you grab right before you left

the ones that I cleaned the ones that you said you didn’t like you left with those my favorite pair of red shoes

the ones my mother gave to me when I was young pure and happy why’d you have to take those

maybe because they were my favorite shade of cherry red or because they never seemed to smell or because they fit you better

with your toes hanging out the top and your heel coming out the end they always fit you better

those poor red shoes

Maybe I could’ve saved you. I tried, believe me I did, but I couldn’t. Somehow something somewhere inside of your body was killing you. Taking each breathe you took, swallowing each tear you shed. Dried you out. Ate you up. Starved you and took your appetite. You had no chance, not one. But I had hope.

Hope that the world wouldn’t take you. Because, I knew if it had, then it would have to take me too. I thought I could never live on without you. But I could, because you said I could.

You showed me love, but also pain. You taught me how to live with out you. You taught me how to grow with the hurt that you left me. You made me appreciate the little things. Smiles, sunsets, grass, animals, really everything I couldn’t before.

You taught me how to live when I wanted to die. And that, that is the greatest gift of all. Thank you for loving me when I forgot to love myself. Thank you for holding on for as long as you could. Thank you for holding onto me for even longer. Even though your not here now, I needed you then, so thank you, really thank you. Rest In Peace my love <3

It was dark and gloomy as if pain and sorrow had exploded on the world. Fog covered the grown and the smell of death lingered in the air. Stumbling through the graves, dragging a trash bag behind me, I found I was not the only living visitor of here. A man, my age or a bit older, weeping beside a newer gravestone looked up at me.

You could tell it was new by the fresh dirt on the ground and the tears in his eyes. Only that of a newly broken man could cry like that. I've seen those tears, I've felt that pain.

I kneel beside him and look him in the eyes. The pain in his expression spoke for the words stuck in his throat. I offered a hand to help him up and he reluctantly took it. He seemed as if he were ashamed of himself. “What’s your name, sir”? I ask with as much warmth in my voice as I could get on a cold night like this. He swallowed the lump in his throat and quietly answered, “Nicholas” “Nicholas, I understand your going through a lot right now and this might not be the best time to tell you this but, the graveyard closes early on Sundays” he sniffled a bit before clearing his throat once again, “Why would they close down a cemetery early on Sunday?” “When I find an answer to that question, you'll be the first person I tell” I shoot a quick smile and drop my head, “Believe me I don't want to interrupt anything but I also don't want to lose my job. Come back tomorrow, we open at 7:00.”

He shook his head and began to collect his things. He pulled one singular white rose from his bag and gently placed it on the grave. He gave me one more quick last look before heading to his car.

I took a look at the grave to read the name of one of death's latest victims. “Meghan Barkley 1997-2021” I read aloud. “All angels must gain their wings one day”. Wow, she was so young. A pity.

I finish up my duties in the cemetery and head my way on out. I lock the doors behind me with a sigh of exhaustion. The night was finally over. I make my way back to my apartment and get ready for bed.

As I lied in bed I couldn't help myself but think of the pain in his eyes, I couldn't help but sympathize with him. His face and name began to bother me more as the night went on. I found myself searching for his Facebook, just out of curiosity, I found that Meghan had been his late wife.

When I look in the sky I search for you. Your smile, your warmth, your eyes, really anything that could fill the hole you left in my heart. I search for meaning in a world that is meaningless. The world looks so much duller now. Full of memories we once shared. My mind feels as if it's stuck on repeat. Playing each memory back to back.

They say time heals but time only shows you what you're missing. What we could have been, and what we should have been. I wonder if you think of us. If you could dream, would you dream of us? Would stay up all night begging God to bring us together again?

Your absence brings pain to a heart no longer able to give love. Tears to the eyes of a dried-up man. It could bring an army to their knees.

Just as I was about to give up, I found a man that said he could take away my pain at a small cost. The small cost being my soul. He promised me riches galore. Wealth only that of kings have experienced. He promised to give me the world!

But, I have fooled this man into thinking he could have my soul but truth be told, God has already taken it. The day he took yours, mine followed along.

I held his hand and with tears in my eyes, I begged him to stay. Gripping it closer to my chest knowing that any minute could be our last. He looked me in the eye and said “I’m not goin’ anywhere”, “I know that”, my voice began to shake, “I just miss you sometimes”. “Well I’m right here when ya’ need me,” he said with a fake expression of happiness plastered across his face. Deep inside I knew he was lying, but what else could he do? I sat with him in a small recliner, big enough to fit the both of us considering how small he was at the time. I placed my hand on his knee and silently cried myself into a pit of destruction. I tried to hold onto my tears as if I were a dam holding onto flooding waters. I could tell he was hurting but wanted to stay strong for me, but how strong can you be for someone when you are too weak to take care of yourself. I sat there holding up as much of my weight as I could to make sure I didn’t crush him. He was practically skin and bones, and it was my fault. He sacrificed his life to save mine…after all I did. He took that bullet for me and now we both have to pay. His payment was more deadly than my own. Though, the thought of life without him killed me more and more each day, the pain of living in a world without the one person I thought I would have forever was now my life. My mistakes killed a man, not just any man, my father.

I could write all day about you bring you to life on this paper but how could you live there if not here how could I bring you back to a life that was never really yours owned by the debt of your mothers scars burned by the fire of your fathers mistakes you never had a chance to live

I could scream to the stars and cry to the moon but they are as deaf as you are dead I never had a chance to show the world your strength so let me write it let me use your tears as the ink and your screams as the words I will take your pain and turn it into beauty