If We Survive This

by Racquel Marie

Every day, running from these same echoes of my past. I can’t do it anymore. As per usual, though, closure is just out of my reach. Closure means ending, and I have never known how to swallow one of those without choking.

My eyes glide past them, treat them like a rabid or another corpse on the road. It’s easier this way. It’s what they’ll be eventually. What we’ll all be.

I am not that woman lifting a car, but I am this girl, dragging her bruised and beaten brother out of a deadly house, gunpowder still singeing the atmosphere. I have to be this girl because I cannot be me right now. Me does not do this. Me could not survive this.

My mom is dying. But she always has been. All of us have. And I cannot do anything to stop that. But I can kiss a pretty girl.