If We Survive This

by Racquel Marie

Closure means ending, and I have never known how to swallow one of those without choking.

Of all the things I have to grieve, capitalism will never be one of them.

The universe wouldn’t give me Crisanta if it wasn’t going to take her away.

Sometimes, I think I like being upset. Anger and victimhood make me feel good in an awful way.

I smile at the gift, at being human. At loving something that can’t die, gifted by someone who could.

But therapy meant acknowledging certain words as my truth. OCD. Anxiety. Morbid ideation. Intrusive thoughts. Words I would search later, privately and as something in my chest broke from what I would struggle to call relief.

The single bloody handprint on the back window reminds me that miracles these days are just the remains of other people’s nightmares.

“I’m scared,” she repeats, “of you dying. Whether you are or aren’t anymore.” The words strike us both. “I have done a lot of things lately that I’m not proud of,” she continues, staring me down. “But keeping you alive is not one of them.”

Violence is animalistic, but affection, it seems, can be just as primal.

His breath shudders, eyes still on his lifelines. “I wasn’t built for this world.” I do not say what I have feared for some time: I wasn’t built for anything else.

Lightning struck, except death isn’t lightning. It’s the sun setting because it rose. It’s an inevitable thing that somehow, during the busy day-to-day of living, you stopped noticing. But now it’s here, and you can’t unsee it. That it happened. That it’ll happen again. The busy day-to-day is just how you pass the time in between the losses.