The Honeys

by Ryan La Sala

Death isn’t the end of a life, but the division of it. When someone dies, their soul scatters into all the things they’ve ever given away. Love. Bruises. Gifts. You struggle to piece together what’s left—even the things that hurt—just to feel haunted.

Or maybe none of us knew her, and we’re making her up now. A girl in the shape of our guilt.

I have never prayed until Caroline died, and now that she’s gone, I only have one prayer. Just one. Wherever you are, let it be bright. I hope it’s light that greets us, in the end, after everything. The alternative is unbearable.

I realize this fits into the way I’ve always seen myself, which is: art, attempted, though often spoiled by the demands of another’s taste. It makes me wonder what shape I’d be if I’d never met another human being.

“Death isn’t the end,” she says. “It’s just when we become everything else.”