I refuse to let another one of my friends become a casualty to this dark winter

It was a Friday when you finally packed it in. Another Friday, just like the ones before it. You found the smallest opening and turned it into an exit, made it look like tearing down a house with your bare hands. We spent our whole youth hovering near the precipice, never thinking about the drop. Never thinking about the sheer weight of gravity until you threw yourself into it. Until the joke went entirely too far and you couldn't take it back. When I finally got back to the city, I couldn’t stop pacing. I was walking violent circles down familiar streets, grabbing our friends by the collars, shaking them, begging them— “Please step back from the ledges.” “Please untie the knots.” “Keep your feet flat on the concrete, please, just stay here.” I said it over and over and over. I was frantic. I was terrified. But they just pulled away from me. They said I was losing my mind. They said I was wearing the tragedy out, said I was talking too loud. “Keep the graveyard jokes for the dead,” they told me. “Stop bringing the gallows into the living room.” But they don't get how the haunting actually works. The phantoms don’t grab your ankles and drag you down into the dark. No, they stay right here. They strike a match so you can see the stairs. Your memory was the only thing keeping the lights on in my own head. I just hope to God someone was waiting there to hold a match for you. But I am drawing the line in the dirt right now! I am the final casualty of this sickness! I will be the very last one! The tragedy starves to death right here in my chest! It ends with me! It ends with me! IT ENDS WITH ME!