The Sky Is Everywhere

by Jandy Nelson

I don’t say a word, just wish I could curl into a ball and roll away.

I’ve disappeared, which is good really, because suddenly I don’t have a clue what to do with my face or body or smashed-up heart.

His joke crashes and burns between us.

“Yeah.” My life catches in my throat.

The sun has burst into millions of pieces, which have landed all over Main Street.

“Wow,” she says, the word falling like a rock to the ground.

Neither of us has a clue how to deal with what’s not being said, or what is.

Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don’t get any of it.

“Thanks,” I say, and the cloak of being fine that I wear with everyone else slips right off my shoulders.

I whisper, “I’m left behind.”

I know it’s ungenerous, but watching them, their camaraderie, makes me feel lonely as the moon.

I shake my head, try to erase my mind, like an Etch A Sketch.

I’d be turtling along, like I always turtled, huddled in my shell, safe and sound.