How to keep going

1. Wake up. Try to take a couple of breaths before the weight of your memories... Crashes down. Get out of bed. Make it to the shower before the thoughts of giving up, creep in.

2. Eat toast. Drink coffee. Forget the fact that everything has lost its taste. Choke back the lump in your throat. Tell yourself it’s too early to fall apart.

3. Step outside. Try not to hate the sky for being so blue. The trees for being so green. Wish that everything was different. Ask a millionth time why.

4. Hands in pockets. Head down. Get in the car. Drive through traffic. Keep the radio off. If the wrong song came on, the hollow feeling inside might swallow you whole.

5. Walk into work. Get buried in tasks. Keep the mask up so nobody will see the rain falling in storms behind your eyes. Keep to yourself. So no one will ever tell you again, this will be okay.

6. End up, at the end of the day, staring at the front door you left this morning, hating every breath, every second, every minute, you're still here and they're gone.

7. Look at the kitchen. Know there's no way you could eat anything. Grab the bottle instead. Pour two fingers, three... four. Because the numbness helps the pain feel more like a companion than a knife tearing your flesh.

8. Put the album with the songs that remind you of them on. Let the tears you've been holding all day, finally fall. Sit on the floor taking bitter sips of relief, with saltwater on your cheek.

9. Pass out. Wake up, with the dark still outside. Drag your broken heart up off the floor. Stagger into your room. Collapse on the bed. Remember, how you had it good once.

10. Drift off to sleep. Promise your tattered soul, it will heal. You won't ever get over this, but the pain will ease... Someday, a smile that's real will return. You won't be the same. This has changed you forever, but somewhere on a day, you haven't seen yet. You will be happy again.

1. Wake up. Try to take a couple of breaths...