I loved watching the smoke from my cigarette twirl and dance around in the air until it dissipated and disappeared into thin air. I wish as a human I had the ability to dissipate into thin air sometimes. Being human was such a burden, a body felt like a cage to me. I was trapped like Adam in a cage, except my cage was made of flesh. I shook the ash from my cigarette over the side of the balcony and watched the tiny cinders drifted down to the street below until they disappeared from my vision. I thought it seemed cruel that if I jumped from this balcony I wouldn't drift elegantly to the ground like the ash from my cigarette. My body would fall and gravity would pull me to the ground for one last hug.

I wasn't suicidal right now. I remembered all the times I'd been suicidal before and damn there was a lot of them. But right now was okay because the shrink had given me some new antidepressants that I'd washed down with my best friend Jack Daniels and I had a good buzz going on. Mind you this buzz was nothing compared to the coke I preferred but I was trying out this whole being clean thing. For my mom. The last time I overdosed she had a bit of a mental breakdown and shit I felt bad for that. My mom was a nice lady she didn't deserve to have a fuck up of a son like me. So I was trying my best. But it was in my nature to be self destructive, that's what my therapist told me anyway. That's the kind of gold you get for eighty dollars an hour.

She at least had my little brother Mikey, he was a good son. He was in college to be a lawyer, he was smart and shit, he would do good things with his life. I guess I've always been a fuck up, I guess it's just the way I was born. Like the way I was born gay. But maybe I was gay because our father walked out on us or maybe it was because of the guy down the street growing up who liked to make me touch his dick. I guess my shrink would know but I didn't tell him shit.

The sun was setting and I guess I was supposed to find the colors beautiful but I didn't feel much of anything right then. The meds were really good, I was feeling pretty spaced out. There was a chill in the air now but I didn't feel bothered enough to go inside. Instead I looked down at my scar covered arms, reminders of my fucked up teenage years. I guess I was really fucked up when I was in high school. The memories were quite fond one's of digging the blade into my skin when I was high off my ass and watching the blood flow from me, completely enraptured at the sight of red. The red was a reminder of the fragility of humanity. It was a reminder that we were nothing more than sacks of flesh filled with liquid. That we were nothing in the grand scheme of things. I loved the way one cut could end it all, get the right artery and you could just bleed out and end the grand delusion that was life.

I hadn't cut in years, I was over my particularly emo teenage years, but once an emo always an emo the black clothes would never leave. The thing is though that the scars never really went away, they only faded but they remained. I didn't really know how I felt about that. I guess I felt some shame when my mom saw them and the sad look she would get in her eyes. That look that I knew she was thinking about how she failed me. I wanted to be able to comfort her and tell her she was a great mom, that all my fucked up ways weren't her fault. I never did tell her these things but I thought them a lot.

I had group therapy the next day, it was just me and thirty other dudes who were just as fucked in the head as I was. I really felt at home. Except therapy was a joke and I treated it as such. The key was telling the shrink what he wanted to hear and we all knew that. We played the shrink like a fiddle and he thought he was actually helping us. Maybe he knew we were playing him and he didn't care, or maybe he was really fucking delusional. Either way it worked for us.

I'd been going to this group therapy thing longer than anyone, I was one of the original members, my mom had begged me to go when it first started and I went because I felt bad. There had been times when I'd dropped out because I went of on another bender but then I'd overdose and my mom would beg me to go and I would. Ronald put up with me at best, I could tell he hated me a little but he had to be professional because I was a mentally ill person and he was supposed to help me.

I jumped down from the ledge of the balcony and wandered inside my apartment when I heard the doorbell. It was either Mikey or my mom as they were my only two guests. It was my delightful little brother Mikey whom I loved. He came bearing the gift of a pizza, he was sweet like that always making sure I ate. I had an unhealthy habit of never eating, it came with all the cigarettes I smoked and all the drugs I used to do, I was never hungry and it rarely crossed my mind to eat. He pushed his way into my apartment and launched right into complaining about how my place reeked of cigarette smoke. He hated that I smoked, and I enjoyed annoying him in any way that I could. He sat the pizza down on the table and went to get two plates from the cupboard. I sat down at the table and waited to be served. "You need to put the cigarette out while you eat," Mikey griped at me. I flipped him off but obliged and set it on the ash tray.

"How is my loser of a baby brother this evening?" I asked taking a slice of pizza from the box and setting on my plate despite the fact that it looked wholly unappetizing to me.

"I'm fine Gerard, how are you?"

"Oh you know the same. Still more attractive than you."

"That joke is funny every time," he said wryly.

"Then why don't you laugh?" I said smirking at him with a shit eating grin. "It's because it's true and it really gets on your nerve and upsets a deep seated self consciousness you have about your looks."

"Shut up, you trying to be a shrink now?"

"I'm thinking about it," I replied sarcastically. "I could be. Like how I know many of your insecurities probably come from the fact that you have a small penis and feel emasculated and therefore you try and reassert yourself in social situations in a feeble attempt to claim dominance. Notice how I never do that. It's because my dick is huge."

"You're a fucking moron," Mikey told me in a disgruntled voice."

"Maybe, but at least my dick is big and I can get pretty much any guy I want to suck it for free."

"You're disgusting."

"I know, that's why guys like me."

"TMI."

"I'm just being open because you're family and I love you."

"Well there are other ways to show love that don't involve bragging about your dick size."

"True but they're not as fun."

"No they wouldn't be for you."