The Other Side

by Kim Holden

A kiss should feel like you’ve been plunged into an abyss that you may never surface from, or it isn’t worth doing.

“Why are you so sad all the time, Toby?” Alice asks out of the blue.

when your outer layer is entirely made up of asshole, no one digs deeper to see the depression just underneath. The depression and the asshole are explicably linked—cause and effect. Effect and cause…and effect. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I don’t know how to answer this question. I don’t want to answer this question.

depression is different than sadness. Sadness is melancholy. Depression is a black hole of despair.

And for the next six hours, I listen to the boy on the other side of the wall cry out with night terrors as his sleeping mind torments him after it traitorously allowed him to cry himself into oblivion.

Glancing in the mirror behind the bar takes more effort than it should. Everything takes more effort than it should. I just want to sleep. Forever.