The Daydreams

by Laura Hankin

When you’re young, and you love someone, want to be them, and resent them all at the same time, it’s hard to step back and separate out those different feelings. They just become one big swirl of emotion, and it’s easy enough to label it as hate.

God, grief is a sneaky bastard. It hides itself for long stretches, only to pop out stronger than ever, and now, at the top of this hill, I sit in the dusty dirt and weep, overwhelmed by how much I missed making things with people I cared about, realizing how many years I lost. I don’t want to be done with this stage. I don’t want it to be just a stage at all.