Dearest,

A million billion people connected through the press of a button, and everyone feels alone. Why is that?

All the kids are killing themselves. There's something with this generation and crying suicide. Maybe we don't know how else to get someone's attention. Nothing's shocking anymore. Better to cry fire than to cry rape, even better to chase a bottle of pills with a bottle of vodka and to call everyone you know asking for a ride to the hospital, and even better yet to slash your wrists horizontally, pretending you didn't know there was a wrong way. It's that much more dramatic if blood's involved. People still come running for blood, right?

In place of friends and lovers, I've had six dozen depressed acquaintances who've taken me for a therapist or a 24-hour suicide hotline or one of those squeezable stress balls. Because that's what I've learned that true love is: letting someone else use you up, swallow you down like a bottle of antidepressants, until you're empty but they feel better and then they can throw you away. I may as well have a dosage tattooed on my ribcage because I give away true love to nearly everyone I meet.

Of course, I hear a scream, and I come running every time. And I don't complain because to complain about someone asking for your help when they really need it would be callous, and I'm not. I'm getting more cynical, but I could never be callous.

I've known two people who've actually gone through with it. Maybe one and a half. The second was an overdose, possibly an accident, but I kind of feel that if you're in a place where doing a lot of heroin seems like a good idea, you must know that dying comes with the territory and, for some reason or another, you must at least sort of be okay with that.

Proportionally, one and a half successful suicides does not even almost compare to the number of threats and attempts I've seen, but this is one of those times where I can't think like an economist because percentages and statistics don't easily translate into human lives.

I'm almost used up because almost no one gives back the amount that they take, and the weight of not giving, of not caring, on my conscious is heavy enough to break me. So, I'm out of commission either way.

Tell me, dearest, what's a clown to do?

Very Much Love,
Pagliacci