The Girl Beyond the Gate

by Becca Day

Keeping up the appearance of someone who’s not teetering on the edge of a breakdown is tiring.

My fingers drift along the photo frames inside, as if they’re greeting old friends with the caution that comes from time apart. Moments of perfection captured for eternity that cling to me like a coat fashioned from shattered glass. The tighter I pull it around myself the more it cuts into me. All it takes is seeing these pictures one more time, to see your face that I miss so much, to realise that I almost enjoy the sting of the glass shards. It reminds me how much I loved you. How much I still do.