The Sky Is Everywhere

by Jandy Nelson

For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.

What kind of world is this? And what do you do about it? What do you do when the worst thing that can happen actually happens?

Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already,

When I’m with him, there is someone with me in my house of grief,

Telepathically, I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I just can’t confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don’t know how to bridge it.

When I get to the path, I take off, trying to outrun the heartache that is chasing me down.

How dare you, Lennie? How dare you feel joy this soon?

“That’s a misconception, Lennie, the sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.”

I feel delirious, Joelirious,

I’m in love, Len—I’ve never felt like this before. Like what? Like forever. Forever? Yeah, this is it. He’s it. How do you know? My toes told me. The toes knows.

Who wants to know that the person you love and need the most can just vanish forever?

“Let’s let the whole fucking world explode this time.” And we do.

Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground.

I’d tell myself that I had a mother too, just not one anyone else could see but Bailey and me.

No matter where I look inside myself, I come across more love for him, for everything about him, his anger as much as his tenderness—he’s so alive, he makes me feel like I could take a bite out of the whole earth.

I wonder if Bailey’s search for Mom would have led her here too, right back to Gram. I hope so.

I gently put my hand on her arm wondering how such a huge love for someone can fit in my tiny body

In the end, Cathy and Heathcliff are together, love is stronger than anything, even death.

“No one’s like you, for me,” he whispers. “Same,” I say,

If anyone asks where we are, just tell them to look up.