when I was waiting for the bombs to fall
and for the world to break apart,
an eggshell held in the palm of my hand,
you took it away. you said it didn't have
to be that way. everything doesn't need
to work in news reports and aching
links to whether we will live tomorrow.
and, well, I believed you, because we
talk to each other every day, words falling
up and down my wrist, heavy with optimism.
I can't believe I haven't seen you in a year.
it's funny to think that we might pull
ourselves out of this. vacation plans
build up in my head with the ease of those
2004 reality show supermodels, glittering
world peace at the camera. come on, that
was funny, but you laugh less now. it's a
mutual thing: if you can read statistics to me,
I can make terrible jokes, deadpan, across a
virtual office table. we are trying to stay
alive, stay together, the only ways we know.
It will all heal, because I want you in my skies.
a brief respite and I am listening to The Cure
at 3 am, watching you unlock the door. we are
still struggling, but I don't mind. the Wright
Brothers crashed planes before they ever flew.
it is better now that you put the blades in the
kitchen drawers, pour the rat poison down the
drain with a loving smile. I welcome the fall.
I welcome it with my bloody neck cradling
your face, wait for the wind to tangle in my hair.
pasta for dinner, a better life glinting in the steam.
We are only children. The evening never, ever ends.
and for the world to break apart,
an eggshell held in the palm of my hand,
you took it away. you said it didn't have
to be that way. everything doesn't need
to work in news reports and aching
links to whether we will live tomorrow.
and, well, I believed you, because we
talk to each other every day, words falling
up and down my wrist, heavy with optimism.
I can't believe I haven't seen you in a year.
it's funny to think that we might pull
ourselves out of this. vacation plans
build up in my head with the ease of those
2004 reality show supermodels, glittering
world peace at the camera. come on, that
was funny, but you laugh less now. it's a
mutual thing: if you can read statistics to me,
I can make terrible jokes, deadpan, across a
virtual office table. we are trying to stay
alive, stay together, the only ways we know.
It will all heal, because I want you in my skies.
a brief respite and I am listening to The Cure
at 3 am, watching you unlock the door. we are
still struggling, but I don't mind. the Wright
Brothers crashed planes before they ever flew.
it is better now that you put the blades in the
kitchen drawers, pour the rat poison down the
drain with a loving smile. I welcome the fall.
I welcome it with my bloody neck cradling
your face, wait for the wind to tangle in my hair.
pasta for dinner, a better life glinting in the steam.
We are only children. The evening never, ever ends.
Syna Majumder is a sixteen-year-old high schooler from India.