This Is Where It Ends

by Marieke Nijkamp

We’re lost between making a home and escaping one.

The only things that give us purpose are the stories that tie us together.

me—the boy who broke me and the girl who put me back together. I will not let him take her away from me again.

If she dies, I will never be able to tell her that she is the one who keeps me standing. That her lips taste like a promise. That she makes me want to be a better version of myself. If she dies, I will believe every ugly word Dad ever said about me.

Death brings life; life brings death. There are no words in that fleeting moment between hope and the knowledge. There is no way to express how a heart can burst and break at the same time, how the sun can cut through the darkness but will cast shadows everywhere.