Summer Bird Blue

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

I build a mental wall, one hundred bricks at a time, like I’m creating armor out of my own frustration.

The only thing that’s dull and gray and dark in Hawaii is me. There’s no color left in my soul, just like there’s no music left in there either. How am I supposed to finish writing a song for Lea when I feel like my heart has been carved out of my chest and the empty, hollow space is all that’s left?

I’m not okay, and I probably never will be. I don’t want to die, but I want to be in the same place she is. I’m not sure where to go from here.

Because to Lea and me, music wasn’t only about sounds. Music was scenery and smells and tastes and magic, too.

I miss it so much—the music. The magic. I miss how it used to make me feel—like I was alive.

“Seriously?” I say. “Seven in the morning?” Kai laughs loudly, leaning away from the window. “Early bird catches the waves.”

I found this one cute, lol.

Life is nothing more than a flame. It doesn’t get to decide when it goes out—it’s either time or an outside interference.

Socializing is like getting out of bed after you’ve been sleeping for weeks.

and that if you google it, “hapa” is supposed to mean people who are half Hawaiian.

Maybe you don’t have to know everything about yourself right this second. Maybe you’re still figuring it out.”

And some things just aren’t meant to heal. Some things are so horribly unfair that there’s no coming back from that amount of pain.

This will be good for you, I tell myself. To try something new. To take a break from the nightmare you’re living.

I don’t think girls should have to smile all the time in order to make other people think they’re approachable. Maybe girls don’t want to be approachable to everybody. And anyway, smiling is basically the same thing as lying. Most of the time when people smile, they’re trying to hide what they’re really thinking.

I’m watching the crash of sea-foam against the almond-colored sand, wondering what it would feel like to be a wave. You wait forever to have your turn on the shore, and in a matter of seconds it’s all over. That one wave—that blanket of water—goes back into the sea. It’s special for a moment, and then it’s just like everything else.

And maybe that’s like life. You live for a moment—one single moment. And then you don’t matter. Because there are years of the past and years of the future, and we’re all simply one tiny blip in time—a surge of water waiting to leave our mark on the sand, only to have it washed away by the waves that come after us.

I dangle my fingers out of the window to feel the wind push against them. I imagine I’m a bird, fighting against the breeze. Birds are lucky—they can fly away whenever they feel like it. They can disappear, start over, exist somewhere else. I’m not a bird—I can’t just spread my wings and go.

“Sometimes you have to break things. Sometimes you need to smash a window or two before you start to feel better.”

it’s a lot of pressure to be expected to love someone so much forever.

Someone who isn’t guaranteed to love you forever back.

This ukulele doesn’t want to fight. It wants to lie on the beach and feel the sand in its fingers. It wants to float on a raft in the ocean, drifting off to sleep with the rise and fall of every wave. It wants to come alive at the warmest part of the day, when the sky is the most perfect blue and the sun makes the world feel like home.

“It’s okay to not be ready. It’s okay to take your time. You don’t have to decide right this second who you are or what you want. There’s so much time for that, you know? I just want you to be happy. And, you know, I’ll always be here for you. For every decision you ever make, for as long as you need me, I’ll be here. Because I love you, and that’s what real parents do.” She cups her hand around my cheek and kisses the side of my head. “I’m here for you, always.”

“You no can help going trew life wit’out being scared sometimes. But if you face your fears, you no need fo’ be scared anymore,”

I don’t care what people at school think about me as a person, but I do care about the fact that they might have an opinion on my sexuality before I do. It feels . . . invasive. It feels like I’m being rushed.

“Your sexuality—and how you identify—is nobody else’s business. You can change your mind, or not change your mind. Those labels exist for you, and not so that everyone else can try to force you into a box. Especially if that box is their close-minded idea of fucking normal.”

Grief is a monster—not everyone gets out alive, and those who do might only survive in pieces. But it’s a monster that can be conquered, with time.

“Grief is only a visitor, but it goin’ stay mo’ longer when it sees you hiding from it.”

I’s okay fo’ be confused, an’ i’s okay fo’ not be confused. One isn’t mo’ bettah dan da uddah, yeah? Dey both normal. Dey both okay.”

It’s okay to be confused. It’s normal.

She tells me that sometimes being angry is easier than letting the sadness in. She says anger attacks like a dagger; sadness is more like a wave.

Some people are meant to be forever, like Lea and me. And other people come into your life for a reason—you help each other figure shit out and come to terms with complicated feelings that you can’t process on your own.