Words in Deep Blue

by Cath Crowley

There should be a disconnect button you can push when someone leaves: you’ve fucked me over, therefore I no longer love you. I’m not asking for the button to be connected to an ejector seat that removes them from the universe, just one small button that removes them from your heart.

“You’re such an optimist,” Martin answers. “I find it helps to be, considering the regular shitness of life.”

We walk to the dance floor and start moving. I love dancing. It’s true I’m no good at it, but it’s also true I don’t give a shit.

I think that we got so many signs and we ignored them because we didn’t believe in them then. I wonder if the future sends us hints to get us ready, so that the grief doesn’t kill us when it comes.

“Words matter, in fact. They’re not pointless, as you’ve suggested. If they were pointless, then they couldn’t start revolutions and they wouldn’t change history. If they were just words, we wouldn’t write songs or listen to them. We wouldn’t beg to be read to as kids. If they were just words, then stories wouldn’t have been around since before we could write. We wouldn’t have learned to write. If they were just words, people wouldn’t fall in love because of them, feel bad because of them, ache because of them, and stop aching because of them.

We are the books we read and the things we love.

Love of the things that make you happy is steady too—books, words, music, art—these are lights that reappear in a broken universe.

And if there is no hope of saving the things we love in their original form, we must save them however we can.