Small Worlds

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

She hopes, one day, to prise open the bunched fists of their hearts, to hear the people her parents once were, and then to know the intimacies of the family’s grief; a grief which Del carries around, whole, like a guiding force; but rather than closing her off, the grief broke and breaks her open. Her life is informed by loss but because she’s lost, she loves and loves freely, openly, with all she can.

what she gives to her friends, the space she makes for people to be honest, to be themselves. What she gives to me, how the feeling of freedom I have with her lasts long after we’ve separated. How each moment must be made the most of.

what has led us to this moment, our spirits threaten to spill from our bodies. Joy emerges in its multitudes.

Over the past few years, we’ve both watched youth centres and hair shops and other cafes close. We all knew that this might happen. This phenomenon spreading like a virus, like contagion, that asks us to stop considering our people and community, and only think of value; value that can be rendered in words and numbers, can be exchanged with a signature. It asks us not to think of people but property.

And then, I am no longer hurt. That part of me which crumpled and folded, unfolds, stretches itself up, out, until taut, until it snaps.

And then, he is on his feet, because if I remember those times, on the pavement, in the car, then I know he hasn’t forgotten, know he carries this shame around with him.

They were loud in a way that wasn’t joyous.

He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him because he had his headphones on, the ones which seal out the sound to create a small world of your own.

He says, he was scared then, not just of dying, but of the shadow he might leave behind.

How we might build a small world, where we might feel beautiful, might feel free.