The Fallen (and the Silence That Followed)

 I wonder sometimes—is it a thing? That busted people gravitate toward other busted people?

Not busted like broken beyond repair. Busted like... scraped-up knees under patchwork jeans. Busted like hearts duct-taped together with gallows humor and thrift store empathy. Busted like old radios that still hum, static and all, if you tune just right.

I saw this image recently, one of those “scroll past unless it punches you in the chest” kinds:

"Why did you stop talking to your friends?"

Because I got tired. I used to be the friend who always cared…

(And then, silence showed me the truth.)

Oof. Right?

It hit in that quiet, guilty place where I still hold old text threads like relics. Because here’s the raw truth: I’m not that old—but all of my real friends are dead.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

The few who did show up for me—who saw me, who checked in, who knew what kind of tea I liked and what songs unraveled me—they’re gone now. Tucked neatly into JPEGs in a folder on my phone titled “The Fallen.” Every name in there is one I said I couldn’t live without. Yet, here I am. Breathing, sort of.

It’s strange, isn’t it? Like some invisible signal passed between us, some subconscious understanding that none of us had much time left. We clung close. We saw each other fully. We loved each other hard in a way that felt more sacred than most romances.

And then… we were left behind. Again.

I don’t know how the “normies” do it—those healthy folks who have decade-long friendships, potlucks, IM lists that don’t decay into ghost towns. I watch them with a kind of anthropological awe. Like, how? How are they not all quietly crumbling inside from the loss of one too many?

Maybe it’s that the chronically ill, the neurospicy, the emotionally bruised—we tend to love fiercely because we know. We know what it is to feel invisible. We know what it is to have pain in your bones, silence in your inbox, and grief as your plus-one. So when we find each other? We don’t waste time.

But damn, it’s lonely now.

I used to worry silence meant I’d done something wrong. That I wasn’t good enough. But lately, I think maybe silence is just grief echoing in the space where someone used to be.

So I light candles in my own way. I talk to photos. I name stars after them, or moths, or characters in my writing. I carry them with me. And I try, when I can, to show up for someone else who’s maybe starting to suspect they’re the “safe place” who doesn’t get rescued.

We're out here. Tired. Busted. Glorious.

And still showing up.