I know.

I know how it felt to have a whole bottle of pills in my mouth, mixed with water. While I sat on the cold plastic tile of the bathroom floor, back against the door, while she tried to push her way in.

It was an impulse in a lost moment. It passed, and I spit them out.

I know how it felt to drive on that backroad between cities, my world in pieces, and be certain I wouldn’t be alive in a year.

I know how it felt to be convinced that you were broken. You didn’t work right. That things that seemed so easy for everyone else were so hard for you. That you cry because you can’t take it any more. That it was never, ever going to get better.

I know how it feels when the only thing standing between you and that place are the pills you have to take every morning, every day, for the rest of your life.

I didn’t know him. But I wish I could have sat with him, and listened to his pain, and tell him that I know.

I know, brother. I know.