Pen Pal

by J.T. Geissinger

When someone dies, you start counting all the ways you failed them.

“Even small dragons can still breathe fire.”

How naïve we are when we’re young. How easily we trust that the sun will keep rising and setting, warming our days. And what a terrible blow it is to discover it isn’t the sun that makes things bright, but the people who love us, so that when they’re gone, everything is plunged into darkness.

“I wish you knew how perfect you are. How different and perfect. I’ve never met anyone like you. Whenever we’re together, I feel like a new man. A better man. Like everything bad that’s ever happened to me doesn’t matter anymore because your sweet smile takes it all away.”

“I know you think I’m strong. But the problem with strong things is that they’re brittle. They can’t bend under stress. They just break.”

We’re magnets who don’t want to be magnets, pulled together by invisible elements beyond our control.

“If you give people light, they’ll find their own way.”