We live our lives out to music, this much I know. Without it, we are nothing.
Nothing.

I knew a girl in fourth grade who stole my heart, then gave it back on St Valentine's day wrapped in pretty paper and colors of red and pink. We were inseparable from that day forward.

I had no chocolates for her, no roses or pretty words. Small children lack these things, they've yet to have their heart broken by the world, so they give out love as presents.

Not candies, nor flowers which will die, but love.

I gave Sharon a song in fourth grade, a confession from the depths of my heart, a poem set to music using all the emotions I knew at that tender age. It wasn't my voice or the words that wooed her young heart, though. It was the music.

We entered junior high together, still both in love with each other through the music we gave. Now we had grown older, and it wasn't preschool songs played out on plastic drums, it was the ear piercing drums and steady, pounding bass we were so in love with, the songs and artists that declared our rebellion, our punk attitudes.

We had affection and mix tapes, and those two things are all anyone needs in life.

The first mix I ever gave Sharon was in seventh grade. I stayed up late the night before the last dance of the year and colored the case by hand with my momma's calligraphy pencils, sketching the trees and butterflies that declared so freely my love for her.

"A mix of my love" was the first title. The titles got better along the years, along with the music.

It was seventeen mixes later as we entered high school, still together.

Along the way we had matured from "The greatest hits of 80s powerpop" to "Berries and Rainstorms" and as we entered freshman year, it was "The Dark Behind Your Forehead", all the anger and angst that came with late nineties punk rock, from the sweet serenades of The Smiths to the angry rants of Green Day. This music filled us with life, as long as we had it we could handle it all, we had it all.

The first true "I love you" was rewarded in turn with "Where Angels Dare Not Tread", fifteen songs which could tell her all the things I never could, the emotions I felt but simply couldn't describe. But they sure could, the singers and artists who had poured their soul into these songs.

We sat on her porch and listened to it over and over again, talking about the music of our love, the groove and rhythm that dictated how we felt, that kept us sane and happy.

In that moment I remembered something I had read somewhere, something some old dead guy had said. "Without music, life would be a mistake."

The words bit through me like snake venom, penetrating my skull and taking over my mind, filling every inch of me with the meaning they held, the truth.

Music is the proof, the proof that everything can be okay, the proof that we can be happy.

It just makes everything make sense. And if you play it long enough, it drives away the evil and the hatred, it takes you somewhere else.
At least, that's what Sharon and I felt.

Then came senior prom, and I knew it had to be something special. We were going off to separate colleges, and neither one was too sure if we could keep it up three thousand miles apart. Sure, our love was real and our kisses genuine, but we were scared, scared that while apart we would hear someone else's song, fall in love with someone else's music.

"The Exuberance Of Youth" is the greatest confession I've ever made. It took me two months to complete, and a solid fourteen hours to draw the booklet. It was the most perfect, most beautiful love song I've ever constructed, and probably ever will. She promised me forever when she heard it, and kissed me like never before, with as much magic as I'd put in her music.

I'm not sure how long it'll last, when Sharon and I's tape will run out, the final track finally stop playing. Maybe tomorrow, maybe never. But when it happens, I'll be ready.

I'll be heartbroken, and won't make another mix after that, but then, I won't need to. Because I've already prepared that final mix, if the day ever comes we split apart.
It's beautiful and everything one would expect for such an occasion.
"Suicide Is Painless."