Choose To Stay

Are you okay?

How are you holding up?

How are you?

Are you all right?

Are we broken?

Everyone says that in a year or two this won't matter 

But I dare you to tell that to everyone at Lone Peak right now.

Every single time someone says some bullshit like that

I feel like the mad hatter

And I just want to take my fist and punch it right through the wall

Because those people are taking my wrists and slitting them and

They will not refuse to take it all

To take every single happy memory I've ever had at this school.

Every single time I felt cool

And every single time I broke a rule

And every single time I felt like a fool for believing them

You know, a sentence came out of my mouth today

And when I looked up the sky was gray

And I couldn't believe what I was about to say

Then I had to stop myself and say "Wait,

Do I want to say something that carries this weight because my world is progressing at a rate where I don't want to say anything anymore."

I simply said "Every time this happens..."

And then I stopped

And it seems like it doesn't matter how hard we fought

Because we can't seem to win the fight.

How can you fight a war that

You feel like you're doomed in?

How can you fight a war

If every soldier is wounded?

We are the soldiers and that goddamn school is a battlefield

And it's not like the teachers aren't doing their job

But if they wanted to talk to every student in the school that's ever had a suicidal thought,

They'd have 2500 faces staring back at them.

It's the reality of the situation 

Because as a teenager we have all these restrictions

Depression is the master of infliction

And none of us may be able to see it until it's finally constricted us.

I love you, okay?

And no matter what I say from this point on, I do. 

Don't give up. 

Come what may,

Find a reason.

And choose to stay.

RIP Terik.

-Ardon Bennett Franklin Smith