If I Go Missing

by Leslie Wolfe

and drove myself to school. A moment of irrational panic makes me check my attire, to make sure my shoes match and I’m not still wearing a wet towel wrapped around my body.

My life resembles a kintsugi bowl, built from the shards of a once perfectly fine existence, only the lacquer holding the pieces together is not powdered with gold dust, but with tears and resilience and courage. I have it together now, even if some of my cracks are showing, and I cannot let anything, or anyone, crush me again. There would be no coming back from it.

The rest of the drive home is merely a moment long, as I don’t recall any of it, my weary mind absent from reality while it battles demons and despair.

“You don’t know what it’s like. To have your mind twisted slowly until it turns on you.”