Want to end that friendship that’s run its course but aren’t sure how? Try this easy step by step guide!

Guide

1. Make sure you’re fully prepared to cut ties. You must not waver or have second thoughts. Results will always be final. If you are not ready, this guide is not for you.2. Collect everything that reminds you of them. Every piece of clothing, every movie stub, concert ticket, plane confirmation. Make sure you get it all. You will need it for later. Put everything in a container and keep it with you as you proceed.3. As you travel, you should always be thinking of your friendship and what it meant to you. However, for this exercise we try not to dwell on those memories that make you feel good. You have to take off your blinders and be wholly committed to seeing this end.4. Think instead about how their hands were always on you when you didn’t want them to be. Think of how your skin burned and your brain tried to piece this monster with the person who was once your friend.5. Think about how when it was only the two of you, their voice knew how to cut you down with a smile still on their face. Remember how those words coated the insides of your mind and laid on your tongue late at night, like bitter pills. Remember the dreams where their smile appeared on the faces of dogs in your dreams that would gouge the words from your insides.6. Scope out their home when they’re away. If they have other people living with them, make note of when they’re away as well. Make note of any comings and goings, write down the locations of any security cameras and pay attention to anything that might signify a neighborhood patrol.7. Find a store on the other side of town where you never go that sells knives, nails and a hammer, tarp, candles, heavy duct tape, and trash bags. It is highly recommended you try to get all of this at the same store if possible. Too many stops can open too much room for you to turn back and change your mind.8. Focus instead on the way they could cry so easily when other people were around and then turn to you, their face covered with their hands, and give you that same sneaking smile. How they probably cried those crocodile tears to people after you and used that sinister mouth to hide all their transgressions. Do you think they told anyone about that night?9. That night, the night you felt bile bubbling in your throat as you kept your eyes closed and begged whatever God was listening to wake you up, because surely it had to be a dream. The night your body wilted and died. The night you wished you’d left with bruises because then you could prove to someone that it happened, but all you have is the memory of shadows and those hands appeared unnaturally large as they swept over you and took from you.10. Sit alone for a moment and remember that you are doing this so that the nightmares and the guilt for lying prone as you were violated will dissipate.11. Return to their home when you are 100% sure you will have at least a few hours to get this over with. Try to arrive before they do, but don’t fret if they have beat you to the scene. Enter with the things that tie them to you as well as your tools. Lock the door behind you, put a chair beneath the knob and hope it guarantees you the time you need.12. First, place the tarp on the floor and then carefully (or not) dump all those memories onto the tarp. If you're creative you can set everything up in a way that pleases your mind, but only if you have enough time.13. If they are home as you’re setting the stage they should be duct taped in the corner and you may feel the need to pick up certain objects and reminisce. This can sometimes help with the healing process. They will cry as you talk. Do not allow those tears to make you waver. You’re here to finish this. You’ve come this far.14. They didn’t just touch you, did they? They made you small, they chipped away at you until you barely recognized yourself in the mirror. And you never told a soul did you? You bore the brunt because you felt so silly to have allowed yourself to come undone at the hand of someone you trusted wholeheartedly, the person you’d told everything to who instead used your stories as a weapon against you.15. Telling anyone would have meant admitting that you were wrong, that once again the trust you’d built had been broken. You put the weight of that night on your shoulders and refused to let anyone hold it because it belonged to you. This is your reinvention. You will be a phoenix rising from the ashes of this betrayal.16. Lay their body on the altar of your friendship. With the hammer and nails drive their hands and ankles into the floor. If the stifled screaming causes you to think twice, headphones are advised. Light the candles and place them in the corners of the tarp.17. If they struggle, the hammer has proven to be efficient in stopping stray limbs from lashing out. Bask in the sound of their flesh being broken the same way you felt yours ripped apart.18. Using the knife, cut into the spots you can recall their hands on your body. Paint a picture of that night that only they can comprehend. Reach inside the wounds and make their insides feel how yours did. Gouge their eyes out with the knife if they refuse to close them, for you too were once blinded. Cut their mouth open from the corners of their lips up to their ears so that your secret may no longer be tucked inside that sinister mouth.19. Enjoy yourself. You have both kept this tucked away for so long, and you are allowed to find peace now. Do what you feel must be done until your body stops vibrating and you can feel every ounce of guilt erupting from your pores.20. Roll up the tarp with the memories, your tools, and them inside it. Drive to a place both of you loved and sit with them for a while. Allow yourself to cry finally. Allow yourself to scream all the things you harbored within your body for years. Walk away and start your life free from them.