When I'm Gone

by Emily Bleeker

appearing okay is a lot easier than actually being okay.

Grief seemed to chase away the comfort of sleep, and he longed for a night where he could drift off into a blissfully unaware dreamworld, where life was potentially weird but definitely less paralyzing.

The letter didn’t take away the hollow place inside him that burned like an essential internal organ had been removed, but it did do something else. For the first time in months, he didn’t dread the sun coming up in the morning