It’s a shame to think that I will never graduate college. I’ll never get a degree or kickstart my career. I’ll never- Let’s not dwell on what I’m never going to get to do. Instead, let’s focus on what I’m choosing not do to.

I have a brain tumor the size of Texas pressing deep into my frontal lobe. It’s inoperable, and the doctors say that it’s unlikely I will live more than a few weeks. The funny thing is that I suspected this to happen. Everything in my life was too good to be true, and the other shoe has finally dropped- right on my head.

No one aside from me knows that I am fated to die before my 21st birthday, and I am definitely not about to tell them. My girlfriend thinks that everything is fine because I told her as much. I know what you’re probably thinking, but what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to tell her that her nagging me about going to the doctor for the last year wasn’t for nothing? I’ll pass on that one; she can save the “I told you so” for my funeral.

I can’t bring myself to tell my parents because I’m not entirely sure they’ll care. The foster system really knows how to pick them. Once I turned eighteen and the checks stopped rolling in, it was “see ya, Jeff!” You can see why I refuse to waste my now limited time telling them. Hell, they’d probably end up finding a way to kill me just so they could get my life insurance sooner. Headlines would read “local college student slain by foster parents for a mere $1,500.” Tragic.

There’s not really anyone else who would be affected by my death. Sure, I’ve made friends but not the kind you’d want to say a proper goodbye to. I don’t even think they would attend my funeral, and I’m okay with that. What’s with funerals, anyway? It’s a weird concept: standing around a 6-foot hole and watching a box that holds the corpse of your dead relative be buried. Like I said, it’s weird.

I’m standing on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge looking down into the blue abyss. A bird swoops down into my eye-line, and I catch myself wondering what it would be like to fly. Maybe I’ll be a bird in my next life, so I can fly around shitting on every abusive foster father in the entire world. My hand slips from the guard rail, and my balance nearly escapes me. Would that really be so bad? I mean, I should just kill myself instead of taking the air some other bloke needs for the next few weeks, right? Tell me, what would you do?